Sonoma County Vineyard

Friday, January 29, 2010

Slownoma, officially.

For many years now Sonoma has had the nickname, Slow-noma. And it's true. Things move at a different pace in Sonoma. It just has a small town, country feel to it. It's one of the reasons we decided to move here to raise our family. That and all the good wine, of course.

Well, Sonoma was officially named a "slow town" by the Cittaslow folks on Wednesday. Cittaslow (pronounced Chee-Tah-slow) is an Italian organization that has named over 120 towns in over 15 countries "slow". The name literally means slow town. There are 50 or so qualifiers that a town has to have in order to be named a Cittaslow town. The big news here is that Sonoma is the first in the U.S and that, my friends, is a big deal.

Sonoma is dedicated to small town life, history, organic, sustainable, family, and community just to name a few. All you have to do is come out to a farmer's market on Tuesday night in the Spring or Summer or to the annual 4th of July parade to know that Sonoma embodies all these things. I hope it never changes.

How does this tie into wine? Well, for me, wine is all these things. Wine is history in a bottle. It's naturally organic (though some people change that). It started as a small town crop, and in most parts of the world, including parts of California, it still is. Sure, there's the big producers, but in Sonoma that's still the exception.

Wine is slow. The grapes grow slow. The fermentation can take forever. The barrel and ageing process can seam to last a lifetime. But when I open a bottle, the world slows down. I use all my senses. And most importantly, I smell and taste every drop. How often do we stop and do that these days?

So, please slow down, open a bottle of wine and think about all the time and energy that went into making it. But above all, enjoy it!

Cheers!

2 comments:

  1. I like the idea and action of slowing down. In this day and age it is a rare quality that we all must be active in pursuing. Or else we will wake up years from now and find that life has past us by.

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  2. I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks!

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