Wine, Wine, Wine… Can I Just Get a Beer?

We are on the tail end of our annual sojourn to Lake Tahoe, Napa, and Sonoma. What started out as an annual trip to hike and bike the scenic area of Lake Tahoe has turned into a mission of wine experience and retrieval from one of the greatest wine regions of the world; Napa Valley and Sonoma County. Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole experience, but I find myself just wanting a beer after two or three days of wine tasting.

When I introduced Jen to wine tasting, not wine, she had had wine before, but the experience of tasting wine from the vintner and hearing their explanation of the complexity of the varietal and what it would best pair with; well, I think I created a wine gobbling monster. She absolutely loves the adventure of finding the perfect wines, but I would never refer to her as a wine snob. She loves sharing our wines with whoever wants a glass of good vino and maybe hear what she has learned about it in the process. Even those that love Kool-Aid, we have a solution for you too. I think of a snob as someone that only buys the most expensive wines and will always make sure you know how much they paid and how hard it was to get their hands on it. What Jen realized early on was that good wines come at all price points and that wine is for enjoying and not showing off. She also found out that by being inquisitive and not trying to impress the hosts of the tasting with her vast knowledge, that they would actually get excited about teaching you more about their wines, what one should expect, tips on where to get good wine, and certainly good food. She discovered that the wine business is a fellowship and not a competition amongst competing wineries. If one winemaker wins; all winemakers win. She absolutely loves it, and I love watching her dive into her passion that has come late in life, but also at the perfect time in her life. A time where she has nothing but time to satisfy her greatest desires.

To be expected, our girls have developed the same love for wine. When we took the girls on the Caligirlcation a few years back, I remember Cortney, our youngest had just turned twenty-one, making the comment that she hoped there were places to get beer. Yea, a girl after my own heart, but it only took one tasting and she was hooked. My beer drinking daughter was now absorbing the wine experience with her new mom and sisters and she fell in love with it. For all three girls, they loved the lessons learned about the wines. Learned the excitement in discovering a beautiful wine through sight, aroma, and taste, and loved that they could share the experience together as a new family.

Without all the senses being satisfied, then you are just drinking. Wine is more than that, isn’t it? I think bourbon has a lot of similarities in the experience, especially when we are able to go to Kentucky and chase the bourbon trail. We absolutely love Kentucky and visiting the bourbon distilleries and Churchill Downs. You want to see a kid in the candy store, give Jen the barn tour and listen to her talk to the horsemen and horsewomen about thoroughbreds, racing, changing leads, conformity, etc. It is one of the times I truly have seen Jen light up and beam. To take the boys, well, that is a trip yet planned. But to have all the guys together, that will be another time and story to write and new memories lasting a lifetime. The girls still talk about that trip ten years later and with the same fondness as they developed for wine and each other. Wine brought a family together and yet another reason to love wine and its capability to be more than just a bottled bunch of fermented grape juice. It now has taken on magical properties of unity. My beer has only given me a headache when I’ve tried to enjoy it too much. Was just thinking, I think I have only been drinking beer with one guy, Greg Healy, who was able to breakdown beer tasting and talk about the grains, malts, and hops used in creating a specific beer we were tasting. Most people either like it dark or light and that is how they will refer to it. Wine, everyone learns right off to swirl their glass to release the bouquet, check for the legs on the glass to determine its acidity in whites and tannins in reds. We all learn to try to pick out the floral notes the vintner has described, seemingly a game requiring just one more sip and swish to agree. Wine gives life and substance to everything. Do you remember beer or bourbon being mentioned in the Bible? Jesus turned water into wine, not beer. That seems like a pretty big endorsement to me.

Now when we hike in Tahoe area, we aren’t just walking and talking, we are planning our stops in wine country. We have our mainstays, the places we take anyone and everyone joining us on journey of self-pleasure. The patio experience at Domaine Carneros, deli food at V. Sattui on the lawn on the way for the tour of the various levels of the Castle, Castella Di Amorosa, finishing with a tasting in the dungeon, or the reserve tasting and stroll through the gardens of Chateau St. Jean, and the sensory garden experience at Kendall-Jackson with lunch at Café Citti. We feed our thirst and hunger every year and we live the next year longing to experience it all over again. We have grown to love the entire experience as much as the wine itself. But we have gotten ourselves in a rut with the places we visit. However, I don’t think the solution is going to be replacing what I have mentioned, no, I think we will be adding days to explore other locations and terroir. If Marriott keeps adding resort locations, who knows, we may end up with a week in Tahoe and a week in wine country. Can we last a full week in Napa/Sonoma? Who cares, I think we are willing to try as long as…. can we toss in a distillery and a brewery or two? I do love beer you know!