Weekend recap
Laura and I went to Sonoma this weekend to do a little wine tasting. We tried to go to wine country a few weeks ago when Laura’s mom was in town, but we blew a tire in San Rafael and spent the day at Sears instead. We tried to make the best of it but we couldn’t find any wine in Sears - not even in jug form. Instead we watched NASCAR in the automotive center waiting room. Thrilling and exciting times.
With four new tires on the old Honda we gave it another go Saturday morning. When we crossed the line into San Rafael Laura and I held our breath and prayed the tires held up, hoping to avoid another afternoon surrounded by power tools and cheap clothing. Luckily physics was on our side this time.
We have a set of favorite wineries that usually visit when we are in Sonoma, but this trip we decided to branch out. The first place we hit was Jacuzzi Family Vineyards. The word “Jacuzzi” sounds vaguely dirty - I can’t quite put my finger on why. I continually had this mental image of a certain video game character exclaiming “Itsa me, Mario! I tickle your jacuzzi!” The wines at Jacuzzi were naturally all Italian varietals, but they were fairly pedestrian. Nothing bad, but nothing exceptional either. Still beats the pants off the Sears automotive department, so were are off to a good start.
Laura wanted to stop at the Gloria Ferrer winery, which specializes in sparkling wines. I really enjoyed the setup there - it felt more like a wine bar than a tasting room. Laura ordered a glass of sparkling wine and I ordered a flight of Pinot Noir samples. We drank the wine outside on the patio where no one bothered or pressured us, and the weather was just perfect. Way better than Sears.
After a brief stop in downtown Sonoma to get some food, we headed in the direction of Buenea Vista. On the way we passed Sebastiani, which is a winery we usually avoid. Since we were in the mindset of trying new things we decided to stop in, and boy am I glad we did. The wines were all fantastic and ridiculously cheap. We ended up buying a couple of bottles, and I think we added a new winery to the usual rotation. Sadly, Sears did not make it into the rotation.
It was around 4:30 at this point and my palette was shot, but we really wanted to visit Buenea Vista because Ryan and Shannon are members and give it high marks. Wineries tend to close early, and things were starting to wind down at Buena Vista when we arrived. The wine pourer person, Peter, told us that they had to finish off all the opened bottles they had so we were welcome to try a bunch of stuff that wasn’t normally on the tasting menu. That was pretty awesome. Little did we know that Peter was a gigantic fucking douchebag.
He wouldn’t leave us alone for a fucking second. He was constantly asking us what we thought about the wine - often before we had a chance to actually taste it - and he was visibily upset if you answered incorrectly. During one of these interrogations I commented that the wine in question tasted a little sweeter than the one previous. He actually grimaced! Listen fuckface, if you don’t want my unsophisticated opinion then don’t fucking ask for it. I don’t ask you questions about linked lists and then get pissed when you answer incorrectly.
This might have been tolerable on its own, but this douchebag all but insisted we join the wine club. Laura and I have been to a lot of wineries - each with their own wine clubs - and we have never had someone push it this hard. We are already members of another wine club but he would not take “no” for an answer. He harassed us about it before and after every single pour. Eventually we had enough so we paid for the tasting and started to leave. On the way out he told us to stop by the next morning and join the club.
I was seconds from jumping the tasting bar and punching this guy in the nuts.
I honestly don’t remember if the wine was any good because this giant douche soured the experience. If Ryan and Shannon hadn’t recommended the place I wouldn’t go back.
At this point we were done with wine tasting for the night, so we went to our hotel room to freshen up for dinner. We usually eat at the girl & the fig because its one of my favorite restaurants, but Laura really wanted to try The General’s Daughter. I could not stop making jokes about all the things I would do to the General’s daughter. What can I say, I am super classy. The restaurant featured a menu where you ordered 3, 4, or 5 courses for set prices. That is pretty typical, but the cool thing is any item on the menu counted as a course. So you could order 3 meat courses if you wanted (the Andreas special). Or 3 salads (the Brent special). Or 3 desserts (the Amy special). I doubt maybe people take advantage of this flexibility, but its a neat idea.
I didn’t see the General’s Daughter anywhere. And believe me, I looked.
We resumed the wine tasting on Sunday. I picked Arrowwood Winery randomly from the map, so that was our next stop. The first wine I tasted was a Merlot and it blew me the fuck away. It was by far my favorite wine of the weekend, and I usually don’t get excited by Merlots. Laura mostly tried whites and she wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was. I believe the Merlot is widely distributed (and you can order it from the website) so grab a bottle if you get the chance.
We picked another random place from the map and ended up at Landmark Winery. Its a small family winery started by John Deere’s great great granddaughter. Anyone want to guess what brand of agricultural machinery these use in the vineyard? The selection of wine was very limited since they only produce 20,000 cases a year. The variety was small but the wines were nice. Nothing exciting, but everything was well executed and the pourers were very friendly. Our pourer told us that the winery next door, Kaz, was even smaller and only produced like 1,500 barrels a year. We decided to go next door and give it a try.
If I had access to a time machine and could change only one event in all of human history, I would go back and stop ourselves from going to that winery.
The winery is as small as advertised. It is a family business - Richard “Kaz” Kasmier the winemaker and his wife and children run the rest of the business. It seems like this guy decided to start a winery one day and just went for it - without having the actual talent or know-how. It was extremely awkward because the winemaker’s son was pouring the samples and we didn’t want to be rude. The first wine we sampled was a Sangiovese, a variety I quite enjoy. He described it as “tangy” - but I can only describe it as horribly sour and nasty. I was close to spitting it up and running for the car. It was truly one of the worst things I have ever put in my mouth. The rest of the lineup got progressively better, but only moderately so. If the wines were cheap we might have bought a pity bottle, but they were ridiculously expensive considering the quality. The kicker is: we witnessed two different couples purchase bottles as we tasted. People apparently love this craptastic wine. I hate those people.
We finished the day at Ledson, but our palettes were burned by the swill at Kaz so we didn’t stay long. We made one final stop at the Russian River Brewery where I planned to pick up a growler for Ryan, but they were actually sold out of growlers. I offered to carry the beer home in my pockets but they had an issue with that.
I didn’t think a weekend of drinking could be so exhausting. I might puke if I see another grape.
