09/25/07 – northern Sonoma (exit tasting)

By Jesse on September 23, 2007

Alkies,

I’m not sure whether you all are familiar with the procedures involved in being an Apollo astronaut, so I’ll tell you.  First, you have to go through a lot of training… lots of hours and days and weeks devoted to understanding the space mission.  Then there’s the mission itself, which is super exciting.  Then you get back, but you’re not done — you get put in isolation for a few days to see if you contracted any moon-diseases, and then you do some exit interviews, etc, and you analyze the moon-rocks that you’ve brought home to see if they matched up with your expectations based on your original research.

This process is roughly analogous to our recent trip to Sonoma.  We did several Sonoma-themed tastings in the weeks and months leading up to the trip, really developing an understanding of what we should expect.  Then we took the trip itself, which was super exciting.  And now we’re doing one last Sonoma “exit tasting,” and analyzing (drinking) the moon-rocks (bottles) we brought home, as well as other examples.

In keeping with the specifics of our wine-tasting mission, please bring wines from the particular sub-regions that we visited.  For those who couldn’t make it: the first day we checked out vineyards in the Alexander Valley, including White Oak, Alexander Valley Vineyards, Simi Winery, Johnson’s Alexander Valley Winery, and more.  And the next day we visited the Russian River Valley, featuring wineries like De La Montanya, Belvedere, Rodney Strong, and — yes — Porter Creek!  Please feel free to bring either a red or a white, as long as it’s from one of the two appellations above.  Also, because they might be harder to find in grocery stores than general Sonoma bottles, please feel free instead to bring a $10 donation, as always.

We’re back at Jason’s house in Brentwood.  Find yourself a merry little bottle of Russian River or Alexander Valley wine, chill it if it’s white, and dig up some tasting notes, for the love of all that’s holy.  We’ll see you on Tuesday night at 9:00.

Jesse