         First stop on our wine country tour - Kunde! |
 Kunde had some good wines - we didn't buy any though... |
 Yes, this is way cheesy... |
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 Next up - Chateau St. Jean. If you visit - they'vedivided up their tasting area into two sections. Their main room serves their regular release wines, and they have a smaller room for their reserves. I highly recommend going to their reserve tasting room - it's less crowded and we had probably to date the best tasting room person - he was unobtrusive, knowledgable, and all around nice. We had a great time there. |
 I highly recommend Chateau St. Jean's fume blanc, their Reserve Pinot Noir, and the Special Select Late Harvest Belle Terre, made from j. riesling. |
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 Another self portrait... |
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 Another cheesy moment.. Anyway, they were getting ready to close up when we got there, so we were a bit rushed through the tasting... Overall, the wines we tasted were ok, but nothing that really wowed us... |
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 More Ferrari Carrano pics... We actually were able to go to one last place - Teldeschi... We picked this one out of the blue - it was open till 5:30. I'm glad we went - the winemaker was the person staffing the tasting room... The zins were yummy too! |
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 A Miata moment... |
 We went to dinner at The Girl & The Fig in Petaluma that night... The best restaurant I'd been to in a while... It's in a house on the Petaluma waterfront, serves French country food (signature dish - their Fig Salad), and only Rhone varietal wines... |
 Jason had the carrot soup, steak frite, & profiteroles... I had the fig salad, duck, and a sorbet selection... We shared a red Rhone varietal flight... There was a really good mourvedre (fr. Cline) in that flight... Jason was really in love w/ the restaurant. |
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 The following morning, we drove over to Napa to meet up w/ Marcin, Dave M & Dave P... We saw a surprising amount of farmland - I had mistakenly thought the entire area would be vineyards... By the way, if you're ever in the town of Sonoma for breakfast - stop by the bakery on the square - their sesame twist bread is to die for... |
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 And here are Dave P & Dave M... We met up with everyone at Trefethen, Marcin's fave winery... Good cabs, a surprising merlot (considering we hardly ever buy/drink it), a lush late harvest riesling... |
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 Marcin's car... We were on our way to the CIA-Greystone restaurant, in St. Helena... It was quite nice - very good service, a huge wine list (though most of us ended up getting their mixed drinks)... A good value restaurant, but make reservations in advance if you ever decide to go... |
 Chimney Rock's tasting room - Dave M tasting, Marcin looking on... We'd actually stopped at Flora Springs prior... They have some interesting blends - their Poggia del Papa is a sangiovese, cab sauv & merlot blend... And no, Dave M didn't do the two glass thing at all that day... |
 Chimney Rock was ok... Had the usual range of wines... There was a funny group of Korean tourists though... Seemed very knowledgeable of wines, but were joking to the tasting room staff that they'd flown in to have some wine to because they were thirsty... |
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 Last stop of the day - Signorello... |
 Signorello had a nice unfiltered zin... Plus awesome AC - it was roasting that day... |
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