The Church of Wine

Marcia and Matt showed up at 1pm to go wine tasting and I answered the door in a towel with a toothbrush in my mouth. I dressed, gathered my bearings, and we got in the car and drove up to Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg.

We stopped at Lambert Bridge which I think was the first winery I went to as part of my Sonoma County Appellations class. I don’t remember being too impressed then, and as much as I like the fireplace burning actual wood and the fancy members-only, candle-lit, barrels-to-the-ceiling tasting room, their wines didn’t do much for me. But they did let us go without charging for the tasting. I love flexible capitalism. When it works in my favor.

Next we stopped at a cute little place in a geodesic dome structure with great view called Armida. It was ok, I didn’t get the best vibe from the woman helping us, but I think I enjoyed their Chardonnay. Cleverly, they have a wine called Poizin, as in Zinfandel.

After that we stopped by the much touted Roshambo tasting room, a place marketed towards young happening hipsters like us. We were served by a nice boy wearing eyeliner from West County, and I think we tried like 10 different wines off both their complimentary and reserve list. No charge! At that point my discriminatory powers were deteriorating, but I picked up a bottle of their 2002 Dry Creek Valley Syrah, aka Justice. Matt joined their “party army” aka wine club.

Our last stop was Belvedere, not a place I’d heard of, but then there are many wineries I haven’t heard off. The font of their winery is in that all caps light-serif font that you might imagine the Romans chiseled into marble. Which I tend to find immediately off-putting. I’m a sans-serif boy at heart. But their wines were quite nice. Matt was jonesing over their Cabernet and picked up a bottle, I quite liked their 2001 Sonoma County Zinfandel (a blend of Alexander Valley and Dry Creek Zin) and did likewise.

Stick a cork in it I’m done. Next stop: meat! So we went back towards Healdsburg proper in search of something that might approximate a nice juicy barbequed tri-tip. We ended up at the Bear Republic Brewery with high hopes. Their Racer 5 IPA did not disappoint, oh is it ever good, but the “Carolina-style” pulled pork barbeque sandwich could have been better informed by a trip back east. Nonetheless, beer, garlic fries, and friends, really, what more could I ask?

4 Comments

I am a foot solider in the Party Army (which is called the RPS club on their web page, unfortunately). We are legion. You will know us by the thundering of drunken footsteps and blood-red yawn spewed forth from our green recruits’ inebriated maws.

I kept trying to stand in between you two so that people would think I was going wine tasting with my two boy toys instead of with a couple. I don’t think I succeeded. You two are so cute together!

There is a picture on Mark’s friend’s camera from Friday night that we may have to delete post on our blogs. You know, just to keep the girls guessing.

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