oceantheorem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oceantheorem) wrote2006-05-20 11:53 pm
oceantheorem) wrote2006-05-20 11:53 pm
Entry tags:
Wine-tasting
Man, today was good.
I finished up my thesis on Thursday, and even though it is a piece of crap, it is done. There is yet editing to be done, but the writing is finished, and I will graduate. I hope.
So today Ann and I went wine-tasting with OPERS. I love my university; we have the coolest rec trips.
I won't go into all the annoying stuff here--about how one kid forgot his ID, and then got left behind and was found in a tree when the second van went back for him, and about how we got gipped out of our fourth vineyard--except for that little vignette there. I could go on for pages.
We went to Bonny Doon first, and I'd never been wine-tasting before (and in fact, really had no idea what I wanted in a wine, or what a good wine tasted like), so I sort of stood back and watched everyone else. By the fourth taste, I was feeling tipsy. Damn. It's hard not to drink everything they give you, even with the little clay bucket next to you. It feels rude to pour out such a tiny amount of wine. I loved a lot of the wines at Bonny Doon, and would recommend, among others, the Pac Rim Dry Riesling and the Framboise. I bought a bottle of the Viognier Doux, which is a dessert wine but only has about a third of the sugar of a normal dessert wine, and a bottle of Uva de Troia "La Violetta" which I don't remember anything about except that I liked it.
The second vineyard was Hallcrest. They showed us the barrel room, and the guy went on and on and on about how to make wines, and while I did zone out quite a bit (thanks in part to the wine they kept handing us), I learned quite a few things. Apparently, the biggest worry in winemaking right now is 2,4,6-trichloroanisol. And because I'm a chemist, I think I was one of the few people who retained consciousness during that part of the spiel. I liked a couple of their wines, but not really enough to buy for myself. I bought a bottle of Clos de Jeaninne for Mom and Phil; they asked for a good red wine and I think they'd like that one. We ate lunch at this vineyard, too. The university had provided a nice spread of salads and cheeses and meats and some bread, and no forks. So we ate with our hands, and drank our wine, and tried to pretend we were still sophisticated. I requested a taste of their shiraz and wasn't terribly impressed. The zinfandel was better but had an acidic finish.
The third and final vineyard we went to was called Hunter Hill, and was this teeny little place out in Soquel. I liked several of the things they gave us, and their zinfandel was much better than the one at Hallcrest, but in the end I bought a bottle of port and a bottle of syrah. Their syrah was fantastic. It made me want to collapse in a puddle and moan. The port was a close second. I don't think I've ever felt that way about an alcohol before, and I sort of wish I hadn't bought anything before that vineyard. Well, I still would have gotten the Viognier Doux at Bonny Doon, but I probably would have traded La Violetta for the Framboise, because it seems a bit redundant for me to have gotten two normal red wines, between the Violetta and the syrah. I should have mixed it up a bit more. Anyway, I'm rambling.
I got home around 5:30, pretty well on my way to being drunk. Mo and Sarah insisted that I'd better keep drinking if I didn't want a headache, and since they were offering their wine to me, I complied, and had a glass of their Australian Yellowtail Shiraz, which wasn't nearly as good as the bottle I just bought, but I wasn't going to tell them that. And besides, theirs cost a lot less than mine, and came in a bigger bottle. So I drank. I think I had a glass of wine in my hand pretty continuously for about twelve hours today. I drank a lot of wine. I drank more wine today than I drank water this week. I am officially a wine lover, and I can't believe I'm moving to Connecticut, where I will have to have California wines specially shipped to me. *sigh*
Anyway. You should all watch this funny video on the Bonny Doon site about switching to screwcaps from corks, because it's instructive and hilarious.
I finished up my thesis on Thursday, and even though it is a piece of crap, it is done. There is yet editing to be done, but the writing is finished, and I will graduate. I hope.
So today Ann and I went wine-tasting with OPERS. I love my university; we have the coolest rec trips.
I won't go into all the annoying stuff here--about how one kid forgot his ID, and then got left behind and was found in a tree when the second van went back for him, and about how we got gipped out of our fourth vineyard--except for that little vignette there. I could go on for pages.
We went to Bonny Doon first, and I'd never been wine-tasting before (and in fact, really had no idea what I wanted in a wine, or what a good wine tasted like), so I sort of stood back and watched everyone else. By the fourth taste, I was feeling tipsy. Damn. It's hard not to drink everything they give you, even with the little clay bucket next to you. It feels rude to pour out such a tiny amount of wine. I loved a lot of the wines at Bonny Doon, and would recommend, among others, the Pac Rim Dry Riesling and the Framboise. I bought a bottle of the Viognier Doux, which is a dessert wine but only has about a third of the sugar of a normal dessert wine, and a bottle of Uva de Troia "La Violetta" which I don't remember anything about except that I liked it.
The second vineyard was Hallcrest. They showed us the barrel room, and the guy went on and on and on about how to make wines, and while I did zone out quite a bit (thanks in part to the wine they kept handing us), I learned quite a few things. Apparently, the biggest worry in winemaking right now is 2,4,6-trichloroanisol. And because I'm a chemist, I think I was one of the few people who retained consciousness during that part of the spiel. I liked a couple of their wines, but not really enough to buy for myself. I bought a bottle of Clos de Jeaninne for Mom and Phil; they asked for a good red wine and I think they'd like that one. We ate lunch at this vineyard, too. The university had provided a nice spread of salads and cheeses and meats and some bread, and no forks. So we ate with our hands, and drank our wine, and tried to pretend we were still sophisticated. I requested a taste of their shiraz and wasn't terribly impressed. The zinfandel was better but had an acidic finish.
The third and final vineyard we went to was called Hunter Hill, and was this teeny little place out in Soquel. I liked several of the things they gave us, and their zinfandel was much better than the one at Hallcrest, but in the end I bought a bottle of port and a bottle of syrah. Their syrah was fantastic. It made me want to collapse in a puddle and moan. The port was a close second. I don't think I've ever felt that way about an alcohol before, and I sort of wish I hadn't bought anything before that vineyard. Well, I still would have gotten the Viognier Doux at Bonny Doon, but I probably would have traded La Violetta for the Framboise, because it seems a bit redundant for me to have gotten two normal red wines, between the Violetta and the syrah. I should have mixed it up a bit more. Anyway, I'm rambling.
I got home around 5:30, pretty well on my way to being drunk. Mo and Sarah insisted that I'd better keep drinking if I didn't want a headache, and since they were offering their wine to me, I complied, and had a glass of their Australian Yellowtail Shiraz, which wasn't nearly as good as the bottle I just bought, but I wasn't going to tell them that. And besides, theirs cost a lot less than mine, and came in a bigger bottle. So I drank. I think I had a glass of wine in my hand pretty continuously for about twelve hours today. I drank a lot of wine. I drank more wine today than I drank water this week. I am officially a wine lover, and I can't believe I'm moving to Connecticut, where I will have to have California wines specially shipped to me. *sigh*
Anyway. You should all watch this funny video on the Bonny Doon site about switching to screwcaps from corks, because it's instructive and hilarious.