Ciao, my lit­tle chick­adees, just back from a long week­end in Sonoma Val­ley. Can you think of any­thing more deca­dent than an entire sec­tion of the coun­try reserved for the pure plea­sure of lov­ingly nur­tur­ing the suc­cu­lent nec­tar of the gods-WINE! Talk about The Sweet Life!

As you can see from the pic­ture above, it was a Wine Diva Week­end! Thank my lucky grapes that my friends Angela and Michelle were expe­ri­enced wine coun­try pros. My dear diva-sister, Evette, and I sim­ply had to fol­low their lead. And lead they did!

Our first full day was spent being chauf­feured  by own our per­sonal wine tour guide, Gene War­ren of Healds­burg Win­ery Tours. With Angela’s cherry-picked itin­er­ary of winer­ies in vary­ing appel­la­tions and vari­etals there was no way we could have any­thing less than a wine­tas­tic day.

Did I lose you with my wine-speak of appel­la­tions and vari­etals? Well, it is like speak­ing another lan­guage. One in which I hope to become flu­ent. In Cal­i­for­nia, appel­la­tions mean a strictly defined geo­graphic area, like Drycreek or Russ­ian River Val­ley. Vari­etal means the type of grape from which the wine is made-Cabernet Sauvi­gnon, Pinot Noir, Chardon­nay, etc.

For those of you that have not had the plea­sure of vis­it­ing the wine coun­try, allow me to enlighten you fur­ther with my newly found exper­tise. Ahemmmm.…

I learned through­out the day that the tast­ing process itself is very casual. There will be some type of walk-up bar or counter that you stand at while you take notes on a pre-printed sheet the win­ery pro­vides with list of wines being offered. If the vine­yard pro­duces dif­fer­ent vari­etals, the barista (wine-pouring per­son, I “bor­rowed” this term from Star­bucks) will ask what you are inter­ested in tast­ing from the selec­tion they have avail­able. Some­times there is a set list that they pour from. You may taste one or all, it is up to you.

At most tast­ing rooms you are given a glass that will be used for the entire tast­ing. You are poured a care­fully mea­sured 1oz. of wine. That is where the drama begins! You can­not help dra­ma­tiz­ing comic exaltation’s about the nose, the bou­quet, the legs of this fab­u­lous wine! Then you begin to really enjoy the process.

Just like the 4c’sof buy­ing a dia­mond, there are 5s’s of tast­ing wine: See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip, Savor. I won’t go into the com­plex wine-speak def­i­n­i­tion of each of these terms, mainly because I don’t under­stand. Here’s all you need to know: Unless it is brown– don’t worry– it is prob­a­bly drink­able. You should swirl your glass so that the wine is exposed to the air and the wine becomes more full-bodied or fla­vor­ful. Sniff or inhale the aroma of the grape, the bou­quet which reflects the wine-making process such as the smell of oak, and together these are the nose of the wine. Only a true wineiac would be able to really define the dif­fer­ence, just says it smells good. How­ever, inhal­ing the aroma, bou­quet, what­ever, really does enhance the fla­vor of the wine. Sip, yes sip just a bit. No need to gulp and swish. Sip and hold then…savor. you will hope­fully enjoy the dif­fer­ent lay­ers of the taste. A bal­anced wine will fill your mouth with fla­vor you might describe as pep­pery, spicy, jammy, fruity, yeasty (bub­bly), earthy, dry, nutty, but­tery, flat, watery etc. Of course, some of these words (the good ones) will be on the descrip­tive sheets you are pro­vided with..power of sug­ges­tion or just the mat­u­ra­tion of your palette? Hmmmmm…

There’s usu­ally a stain­less ves­sel and a pitcher of water on the bar. Once you fin­ish tast­ing the first wine, you may spit out what is in your mouth into a stain­less ves­sel (Yes– spit. I am proud to say none of the Divas spat.), you may fin­ish (swal­low) the 1 oz. ration, or pour it out into the stain­less ves­sel. The water is to rinse out your glass in between varietals.

Other vine­yards may present you with a tast­ing flight, which, in this casual sce­nario, is from 3–4 glasses from the same vine­yard and a related cat­e­gory of wines. For instance, all whites, all Chardon­nays, all reds, Pinots or Caber­nets, etc. The glasses are often placed on top of a sheet of paper which iden­ti­fies each wine and gives some infor­ma­tion about it. This for­mat allows tasters to com­pare and con­trast dif­fer­ent wines. If you are only given 1 glass but wish to com­pare wines-all you have to do is ask and the barista will gladly pro­vide a fresh glass and a new 1oz. pour of the requested wine for comparison.

These tast­ings some times come with a fee, some­times about $5.00 some­times $10–15. Usu­ally this fee will be applied to any wine pur­chase you make.

…to be con­tin­ued tomorrow.