In Wine We Trust

You're in for a plethora of blogs now that I found my camera :)

At the end of March we ventured out for our 2nd annual Livermore Barrel Tasting weekend.  For the record this is our second year, but the wineries in the area have been doing it for a few years.. we're just a bit slow.  This year Dave and I did the 2 -day event solo... well Drew tagged along for day one and then was rescued by Grammy and GrampC for the second day.

But Drew's a trooper and was very patient with us while we did our tasting.  We started at our Wine Club favorite - Cuda Ridge.  Drew happily played with his workbooks.

While Mom & Dad did some sipping...

Day 1 was a wet one - it was pouring rain!

We managed to make it to a few places...

Dave and Drew were hamming it up in the cellars of Concannon...

Drew is really trying to "Press" his luck at the huge wine press.

Have no fear.. no wine was consumed by any minors....

Our bribe to get Drew to hold out for wine tasting in this capacity (normally we do a few hours then go home) but we stayed at a hotel in Livermore and he got pizza for dinner and was able to swim in the indoor pool.  Shazam!  Grammy and GrampC joined us for the night out and then rescued Drew the next day - taking him to a movie while his lush of parents continued barrel tasting.

It was cool - we tried a few new wineries - one of which is a small winery Caddis.  They were showing off their new wines and we were shocked to see one of our "wine pourer friend Kathy" from another winery pouring at this one.  Turns out his son is making wine under this new label.  It was very good!  But also a bit pricey for us.  We did walk away with one bottle - since our tasting fee pretty much went into it anyway.

A successful barrel tasting weekend completed again!

Virginia Vacation: Wine & Movie Time

By Wednesday of our Virginia Vacation (a month ago now) we were wiped out and needed a low key day.  Before our trip we promised Drew we would take him to see Monster's University and so we did.

When we got to the theater they were doing a Karate demo and allowed Drew to break a board with a karate chop.


He was quite pleased with  himself, all the while shaking his hand... I guess it hurt a bit.  After the movie we stopped in a candy store and Drew came out with two new goodies... an Angry Bird hat courtesy Grandma and Grandpa and a Angry Bird Space thing for his backpack (courtesy Mom and Dad).


Our gift was to bribe him for our next stop... wine tasting.  Yes there is a winery in Williamsburg.

Williamsburg Winery was located near our timeshare and we figured it was better to do wine tasting than head out to Richmond which is what we initially planned for after the movie.

This is the winery - and the tasting room is to the far left of the picture.

Some of the grapes on the vines...

Being a Californian, I am used to wine tasting going a certain way.  You arrive, you walk up to the counter and they pour the tastes.  Here at Williamsburg Winery they do things different.  While they do offer a tour on the hour, they apparently do their tastings also on a time frame.  We had to wait about 30 minutes for the next "tasting".

We were kind of annoyed especially when they said "tasting only follow me" - and then rescinded that saying they really meant "Tour and tasting" meaning we needed to wait even longer.

We finally got our tasting time and it was Dave, his Mom and me.  Grandpa and Drew stayed out front where Drew was on the electronic pacifier (my phone).

The pours were small (even smaller than you get here in California) and the wines weren't that good.  I will say there was a raspberry infused wine that was really interesting, but not good enough to buy and use up some of the precious weight in our checked bag.

We ended up going back and playing cards and having dinner after a low key day.  We tried to go swimming, but Mother Nature and her storm had another idea.

Lodi Fun

Because Drew's Tball game was so early - 8:30 - it was wonderful to have a full Saturday yet to do something fun.  So we decided to head out to Lodi to pick up one of our wine shipments from Macchia.

Well since we drove all that way - about an hour from our house - we decided to hit up a couple of new (to us) wineries.  Down the road from Macchia is Acquiesce the all white version of Macchia which is all reds.

We loved this little winery!  They have a cool front door

And the winery is inside a restored 100 year old barn.  They are a very small lot winery and I have to say we loved it!  We got a couple of bottles.  Everyone was super friendly!  And best yet, we were able to taste for free courtesy a free tasting "coupon" given to us at Macchia.  Although it would be worth the $5/taste fee they charge.  Acquiesce also pairs their wine with foods.

We will be back!

And then we decided to venture to another new-to-us winery, Heritage Oak.  Again, very impressed!  The staff was really sweet with us, and even made friends with Drew.  Not all wineries are kid friendly and I have to say they went above and beyond to make us feel welcome.  We were told about a really cool little hiking trail with a swing.

So after tasting and purchasing a few more bottles we decided to head out for a little hike.  Oh man was that worth it - especially for a little boy who wanted to do something "fun" for him.

About 10-15 minutes down the trail was this awesome tree swing near the bank of the creek.

Drew had a great time swinging and got a bit nervous when the swing would start to spin in circles.

After some play time we had to make our way back - Mom and Dad wanted to hit up the Lockeford Meat Market if not one more winery (we only managed to get our meat).

But there was one tree on the hike back that Drew couldn't pass up climbing.

The height started to make him nervous and Drew said he had to go to the bathroom.  Bad.  So instead of climbing down he jumped to Dave.

I thought it was pretty cool I caught the action jump shot.

Turns out Drew didn't actually have to go to the bathroom.  It was just the sensation he had from being so high up.  Guess you have to be a guy to understand that feeling - Dave went into great detail filling me in.

On the way back Drew found a cool stick and pretended he was one of the "Sand People" from Star Wars.

Daddy wanted to play too and found a stick.  Drew saw how cool Daddy's stick was and decided it should be his.

Size does matter even when you're 5.

And here's a final shot on the trail back to the car...

Gotta love my boys.

It turned out to be a perfect day. 

Sipping from the Barrel

The week before Easter the three of us were joined by Grammy and GrampC for a weekend of Barrel Tasting in Livermore.  We loved doing this before and just after we got married in the Sonoma/Kenwood area, but the cost of tickets got a little out of control.  It was much more reasonable in our local wine tasting region.

And the trick now days is to figure out how to keep Drew pacified for wine tasting.  This time not only for one afternoon... but two!

It helped that ever few wineries there would be something of interest to look at.  Like the Clydesdale horse that was resting while it's passengers were inside Murrietta's well wine tasting.  Drew is in love with Clydesdales after watching the Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl - the one with "Landslide" playing in the background.

The first day we hit up about 6-7 wineries.

There were a lot of opportunities for candids at Concannon.  We were in their event center.

For those not familiar with wine tasting and barrel tasting... wine tasting you are at the counter tasting bottled wine. Barrel Tasting you taste wine before it's bottled and still in the barrel.  It goes through a lot of changes before it reaches the bottle. 

So what does Drew do to entertain himself while we're getting our wine on?

He runs through the fields.  Dave and I would take turns checking on him. It was a gorgeous day and he preferred working on his workbooks outside rather than inside where it was often crowded and dark.

GrampC and Drew check out the old set of wheels outside Page Mill Winery.

And at our next to last stop for the day , we went to Las Positas Winery.  We managed to get one family picture.

Drew wants to taste from that barrel in a few years...

So the plan to get Drew to cooperate for two days of barrel tasting was to bribe him with an overnight stay at a hotel with a pool.  Thankfully I had some hotel points and it was a free stay.  This was the best idea I had!

After swimming the next morning, we headed out for another day of wine tasting.  We started at Thomas Coyne and Fenestra.  Drew was climbing the rooftops... begging to go back to the hotel.

I clearly didn't take as many pictures on Day two, but here is a nice shot from McGrail Vineyards.  One of our last stops for the day.

We had a lot of fun, and Drew managed to survive although day 2 was definitely a tough one for him.  Who can blame him?  Perhaps next time we'll give him a few sips of the "juice". 

Cabin Fever

The past month has been a rough one in our house with both Dave and I hit by this brutal flu/virus. I was working from home for 2 1/2 weeks and Dave was bedridden for a good 4 days and we are just now getting back to normal.

That means poor Drew has been left to fend for himself for much of this time. So this past weekend when it was nice Dave and Drew joined our neighbors at a couple of local wineries (I stayed behind to sleep because I'm not quite 100%).

It looked like they had a great time!!












Dave and our neighbor Julie.



Drew overcame cabin fever - whew