Stories of Wine Tasting Tours

Disclaimer and Health Warning

Alcohol is a dangerous product. It should be used only by responsible, trained adults, and even then only in moderation. When mixed with motor oil, for instance, alcohol is deadly. Despite the apparently flippant attitude of this column, we treat all alcoholic beverages, wines included, with great respect and great care. Don't drink too much. Don't even think about driving when you're drinking. Don't drink if you're pregnant. If you have any neurons left after all that drinking, use a few of them to grasp these common sense ideas.

We really don't drink a lot at all. You might not guess that correctly from the tone of this column. We love good wines. We tend to have a bottle with or before dinner a couple times a week. We serve good wines at parties. We even bring good wines to parties we attend. (Hey, invite us and find out.) But getting blitzed is a thing of the past. Dim past, to be sure.

Introduction

It's not that we're winos, but we have spent a number of vacations, and weekends, and day trips, and drive-throughs in various wine-producing (and consuming!) regions of the world.

• One or another of us has been to Napa Valley, specifically on a mission of wine-tasting, about fifteen times.
• One or another of us has been to Sonoma Valley, including the Russian River Valley, again specifically to taste recent wines, three times.
• We have been to the Cote D'Or (Burgundy) region of France once.
• We have been to the Mösel (Moselle) region of Germany once.
• We have not been to the Bordeaux region of France, sniff, and we are still waiting for the business-trip fairy to bless us with the right occasion.
• Nor have we managed to get to the wine regions of Australia; similarly, we are still waiting.

Most of the time, we have been careful to record our impressions of the various wines we tasted. (Some of these that have been recovered from the historical scraps of wine-stained paper on which they were graven for posterity are included in the ratings.) You may already have guessed why we have to write them down. If not, read the stories.

Sometimes we have even been inspired to write down our impressions of the trip. In the best circumstances, this is done during the hangover and has the ring of truth. Other times, we may wait for some time, months or years, before writing our travelogue, so that the experience is filtered through the haze of distant memory rather than through the haze of alcohol.

The stories:

• An Army Travels on its Liver. The Three Lushes spend a week in Napa and Sonoma.
• The First Time. How did we ever get into this delightful obsession?
• Napa Wineries to Hit (and Miss). Yes, actually naming names of the places that we think you ought to go to should you have the chance. Even if you can't get there, the list names names of wineries that consistently produce great stuff.
• The Myth of Gold Medal Wines. Medals are so common that they are not reliable indicators of wine quality. Beware those who tell you otherwise.
• Soon, we will be inspired to sip less and write more.