Calistoga Wine Event

It's for the kids! The annual wine tasting event in Calistoga is a fundraiser for a local preschool. Brilliant! It was only $10 for a passport to taste at 6 small Calistoga wineries, some of them which aren't usually open to the public, except for their wine members. We didn't make it to all six, but we did spend the afternoon at four of them. Each had a different ambiance and set of wines, but they were all worthwhile. I think my favorite one was the first one we went to, Bennett Lane Winery. They had the best overall set of wines, the best appetizers, the best picnic area, and most of all, a real NASCAR in the barrel room! I guess one of the owners of the winery also owns a Nascar team, so, there you go! My friend Samidha and I spent quite a while here, talking to different people who worked there, doing a reserve tasting in the barrel room, and of course, posing with the Nascar. I ended up just buying the 2003 Maximus Cab blend, wanting to be conservative, although I would defintely recommend any of their wines under the Bennett Lane or Maximus label.

The second winery was Calistoga Cellars. The most notable wine here was the $14 Sauvignon Blanc, of which Samidha and I each bought a bottle. We also got to do a barrel tasting here, my first ever! We tasted two different 2004 Cabs from the barrel, one from the St. Helena vineyard and one from the vineyard on the property. Knowing Cabs, I thought that the wine would have been tannic, heavy, full-bodied, perhaps tart. They smooth out with age, right? Well, I neglected to remember the brix, or sugar content, which at the stage we drank it was about 3 times what it will be when they bottle it next year. It seriously just tasted like grape juice with a kick. I was really surprised by that.

Third winery on the tour was Zahtila Vineyards. The tasting room here was small, quaint, and cozy. They had a few decent Zins and Cabs. I decided to get the 2003 $20 Zin because, for the price, it seemed like a good value. They are a small production shop, only producing 859 cases of this Dry Creek Zin, for example (true, that's over 10,000 bottles of wine, but in vineyard terms, that's still small). We'll see what I think of it when I actually open it (it was the 3rd vineyard after all...) but I generally enjoy decent Zins, so I'm not too worried about it. Fourth stop, and last call, for us was Casa Nuestra farther down the Silverado Trail. They had tastings of whites and roses outside (the rose was good, but not $24 good. I would have priced it around $14), and then reds inside. The wine here was decent, but nothing spectacular, and certainly overpriced for the quality. However, they did have homemade tamales and a live band, so after food and wine, we lay out on the blanket in the spotty shade of the huge trees over the grass, listened to the music, and sobered up. It was so relaxing, and with only 10 or so other people there, it felt like our private party.

This is definitely a must-do group event next year, and for anyone else who is interested, it's always the 1st weekend in May. Check out Calistoga Wine Event for more info. And for anyone wondering how I find out about this stuff, yes, I do have too much free time, but I still maximize it by looking at this site.