For anyone who knows us, we enjoy a good glass of wine. We lean more toward the reds for the most part, and as fans of the reds, we individually look for the following:
Dianne – smooth, flavorful, low acidity
Gary – bold reds, lots of flavor, dry
That’s not to say that we don’t enjoy a good white for sure. And a nice dry Rosé on a hot day can be quite tasty and relaxing.
Different wineries have different approaches for different reasons. Some wineries:
- charge a tasting fee to experience 4-6 wines.
- waive the tasting fee if you purchase a bottle or two.
- offer free tastings up to 5.
- offer free tastings with no limit.
- offer free tastings with food.
Wherever your at, roll with it. If a $35 per person tasting (which can easily happen in NAPA Valley) isn’t your thing, then either walk away (nicely please) or split the tasting between two people (most wineries don’t mind this). But at least check it out first. When we walked into Williamson Wines the first time, it appeared to be incredibly pretentious, however, we were met by the most incredible staff (who clearly enjoyed their jobs) who told us in the first line “our wine tastings are free” and their wine was worth signing up for their membership. Other wineries we’ve paid $35 per person for so-so wine.
You never know until you try it out.
Which leads us to another issue – the cost of wine. The price of a bottle is not always indicative of whether it is a good wine or not. Price is based on many factors:
- Region – where the grapes are grown has a lot to do with it. In NAPA valley for instance, the yield (amount of grapes per acre harvested) is low, but the quality of the grapes for wine making is amazing. In Europe, they have labels based on which winery, which hill, and whether a winery has followed the exact criteria required for the label. In some cases, the criteria includes the amount of water allowed to irrigate the vineyard. For areas with labels, the winery is closely regulated to ensure they adhere to the standards set. We’ve even been to wineries where the line was drawn at the property line of the adjacent property not including the winery we were visiting. Politics perhaps? All we know is that the wine on both properties produced really great wines.
- Season/Weather – If there was a good harvest that year and there were a lot of good quality grapes, the wine may not be as expensive as a bad weather year with fewer grapes. Too much rain, not enough rain, rain at the wrong time in the season are just a part of the yield. Late frost or early frost can also affect the harvest.
- Shipping – particularly in the US, the various states don’t always “play nice” together. Some states don’t even allow wine to be shipped to specific states. In PA for a while it was illegal (that’s right illegal) to ship wine within the state (go figure). Not to mention the distance for shipping.
- Type/age of vine – in Spain, we were at a winery where we were presented with two wines and asked by the host to identify which was the more expensive wine (one was $35 per bottle, the other $55). In a group of 30, everyone, except us with JMO, said the better tasting wine was the most expensive (although both were pretty good), where we disagreed in their assessment. When they asked why we thought differently, we stated that based on the explanation of the origin of the vines/grapes, it cost more to produce the wine that didn’t tasted as good. Turns out, we were right (whew!).
In addition to the longstanding wineries we’ve been to, numerous new wineries have cropped up in our region over the last couple of decades. We’ve even had the opportunity to work for one that gave us a much deeper understanding of the industry and taste for wine.
Most of our journeys have included at least a day or two wine tasting at a local winery wherever we were. Whether it’s a long weekend in Virginia, extra time in California, Argentina, Spain, Italy, etc., we enjoy journeying to different wineries literally across countrysides.
In the mid-Atlantic, we’ve been to quite a few wineries in the region, including Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Out in California, we’ve been to the Santa Ynez region, Paso Robles, Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley – there’s a lot of wine, and a lot of good wineries out there.
On our bucket list for new wine tasting for Local Gems is New York State (Finger Lakes region). Out and About we looking to schedule trips in the US to Oregon State, and Washington State, along with France, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Portugal, Chile, South Africa, and of course, New Zealand.
Then there’s breweries and distilleries, they seem to be popping up everywhere.
There’s just not enough time!