Another Day in Paradise

-the aftermath of wine tasting at robert mondavi-

...so while many of my peers sweated over a 6 hour exam today, i went to 2 more wineries and drove over a mountain. we had a beautiful day getting sunburned with the convertible top down. had a late start this morning and then went on a wild goose chase for a wine from this area that my dad had in a pub at home a while ago and that no one 'round here seems to know anything about. it's called pinot meunier and is a special grape that very few vineyards grow and only a few bottle on its own and not in a mix...so our track for this holy grape grail took us to a tiny little winery called august briggs out in calistoga. they only sell something like 5,000 cases/year total and are not very commercial....so we felt especially cool enjoying and purchasing their lake county 2005 petit syrah and 2006 dijon clones pinot noir. they did NOT have the one we were searching for available, so we'll have to keep trying elsewhere. our old camera crapped out, so i have no pics of that lovely little winery.

so we went to santa rosa (a large city in the area- 160,000 population w/ all the big box stores) to best buy to buy a new camera (it's awesome!)....so we have TONS of pics from our tour to robert mondavi vineyard in oakville. we got a great private tour (i don't know how to put this-but we're kind of a big deal) including peeking at the grapes about to be harvested, checking out the presses, the barrels, and the fermenting tanks- they use french oak HUGE barrels instead of the stainless steel tanks we've seen in most other places- and lastly, doing an extensive tasting. it was a great time and i fell in love (and bought) their estate-only 2006 PNX carneros pinot noir.