One of my favorite parts of living in Northern California is the abundance of wineries within a few hours drive.  And it continues to amaze me just how many wineries there are.  Husband and I have extensively explored the wineries within Sonoma and Napa County.  We have many favorite wineries which we tend to go back to each year. At the same time, each visit we find more wineries that we haven't yet explored.   Often, and especially in the Russian River Wine Road area, the wines themselves are only secondary to the wine tasting experience. But this year we decided to explore new territory.  We had many places to choose from including the Santa Cruz Mountain wineries, Monterey Bay wineries, and even wineries in the Sierra Foothills.  But since we've also not done a lot of exploring of the coast north of San Francisco we decided to go to Mendocino for a couple of days to check out a new (to us) part of the Northern California coast and to try out wines of the Anderson Valley (Mendocino County).

We didn't consciously consider that Anderson Valley would be less crowded, less commercialized and more unique but it’s definitely what we found.  Unlike Napa, and unfortunately increasing Sonoma, Anderson Valley wineries don't charge tasting fees.  Also the wineries tend to be smaller and less like marble fortresses.  And they definitely had less people.  Although be warned the roads leading you into Anderson valley are twisty and windy - much more so (and for much longer) than West Side Drive in the Russian River area of Sonoma Counter.  The roads were definitely one part of the trip I didn't enjoy despite Husbands awesome driving to help prevent me from feeling ill!

 We had been warned that many of the Anderson Valley wineries require tasting appointments.  This is somewhat true in that some wineries do require appointments but you can also find many that are open without the need for appointment.  A local San Jose wine shop had recommended we try two wineries in particular: Esterlina and Londer .  Unfortunately Londer was unavailable the day we tried for an appointment.  So we made an appointment for Esterlina.  The result was what I must characterize as best wine tasting experience I've ever had (and the wines were great to!). 

Just getting to Esterlina is different.  The winery is about 2.5 miles up a single lane, twisty (of course) and dirt road.  Leading me to believe they assume only true wine enthusiasts will venture into their winery.  Once we got there we were personally greeted by Patty their Tasting Room Director who was all set for our wine tasting.  She led us up to an outside patio on the top of their winery that looks down into the vineyards.  The view is magnificent providing a sweeping display of much of the Anderson Valley.  While it's a bit windy it wasn't hot because the patio was covered or was it that the table had an umbrella - can't remember.  At any rate, even though it was in the low 90's in the valley where we were was very pleasant during the tasting.

 We sat at the table as Patty brought out several bottles of wine, chips, crackers and other tasting nibbles.  The tasting we would soon learn included every wine they have and took over an hour.  As Patty would pour the generous amounts of wine she'd discuss the wine, the area, and the winery.  We started with a Sauvignon Blanc and a couple other whites, followed by Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and two types of Pinot Noir.  We finished with a Zinfandel paired with dark chocolate Kit Kats (which I didn't know existed).  As with most wine tastings not every wine was amazing but we really enjoyed many of them leading to the purchase of several bottles and joining their wine club.  After the tasting we stayed on the porch and ate our packed lunch, with more wine Patty left for us.  When we started the day out we thought oh we'll do the tasting at 1, have lunch and then taste a few more places.  We didn't leave Esterlina till close to 4pm.  The result - I'm a big fan of Esterlina and most definitely looking back despite the twisty roads! 

Hopefully next visit we'll get to Londer as well but I know for certain we'll visit Esterlina again...

It was an easy enough idea - Let's have a wine tasting party.  Acutally a South American Malbec tasting party.   Husband and I had bought a couple of Malbecs at our favorite wine shop.  After the third bottle in as many weeks we realized we really couldn't compare something tasted 3 weeks apart.  Argentinian and Chilean Malbecs are generally cheap with most under $20 and many under $10 so why not buy several and open them all at once.  Well that's alot to drink for one reason.  Hence the idea for a party.  But how does one do a wine tasting party at home?  I mean at a winery they have the bottles you taste a bit and you buy or not.  But just wine doesn't make much for a party - unless you really drink alot!  I searched the web for info on a wine tasting party but couldn't find much if anything to help.  So we'd have to wing it.  The guests were easy we invited friends who love wine but what should we serve besides wine?

After many possible plans what we decided was to get together relatively early (4:30pm) to have the tasting (6 wines).  Then a couple of hours later (7pm) serve dinner.  They key was not to have too much for dinner and to serve something with the wine. That way we would not be starving by dinner time and not stuffed after dinner.  To go with the wine we went to our favorite Cheese Monger and got four cheeses to match our Malbec.  The cheese monger helped us wonderfully picking mostly Spanish cheeses to match the S. American Malbecs.  We also had some veggies, bread and crackers to keep the cheese course from being too heavy. 

Besides not being to heavy dinner had to be easy because after tasting six wines neither Husband nor I would want (or be able ) to cook anything elaborate.  So we had a pork roast cooked on the grill with a fruit salsa that was prepared earlier in the day, roasted beans and sweet potatoe fries.  Dessert? Well not that we really needed anything but just to top things off we had sliced mixed fruit (from our neighborhood farmers market) with home made whipped cream.  

The event was a hit as were the wines...

Below is a listing of the Malbecs we tasted in our order of preference. Some were bought at The Wine Club  and others at BevMo.  The first place wine was $30 (nope nobody new the price when judging) and all others were under $15.

1. Luca Vintage 2004 Altos de Mendoza, Argentina
2. Finca El Portillo 2005 Valley de Oco Mendoza, Argentina
3. Tamari Reserve 2003 Mendoza, Argentina
4. Montes Reserve 2004 Colchaqua Valley, Chile
5. Filus Reserve 2003 Lunlunta Valley, Argentina
6. Alamos 2004 Mendoza, Argentina