A Taste of Sonoma - Part 2

You can see my first Sonoma recap here. After you read that, pop back over here for the rest of my Sonoma trip!

I left Silver Oak and headed down to Trione.

This was taken in the early morning hours before the sun came up.

I stepped inside and there was one just one other couple in there at the time. I sidled up to the bar and got a copy of their Tasting Menu. They had a few tasting options, Reserve, New Release, Reds or Taste All Wines. I decided on Reds. I tasted:

2007 Pinot Noir

2007 Syrah

2006 Red Wine

2006 Block 21 Cabernet Savignon

For each wine, they had a card that explained about the wine, where the grapes were grown and tasting notes from Trione's Winemaker. Those were really helpful. My favorites were their Syrah and the Red Wine. 

I had finished my tasting when the couple next to me asked if I wanted to go on their tour with them. They had joined the wine club and one of the perks was a winery tour when they visited. Of course I want to go on a tour! The two women running the shop that day filled up our glasses and we all headed out around the winery for our tasting. 

We checked out the view

Spent some time on the super comfy deck.

Enjoyed the "special" tasting room. I love the fake candle light.

The chairs and table were all made by a local artist. 

The door was crafted out of old wine barrels. 

I totally got made fun of for taking a picture of a door. I don't even care.

The fun, wavy sink.

Close-up of fun wavy, sink. Ps, husband, I want for my bathroom.

We took a trip through the barrel room. This one amused me it was so stained! The girl giving us the tour couldn't explain to me why it was like that. 

Our tour guides:

In the back of the winery, there is a huge room that is used for weddings and special events. If I was a California girl, I totally would have picked a place like this for our wedding. It was absolutely gorgeous and they had fun windows you could peek out of.

My new friends (they're such great friends that I can't remember their names) and I hung out at Trione for a while and I ended up buying a bottle of Pinot. I really wanted the Red but it was beyond my budget limits. We enjoyed the absolutely fantastic weather we had that weekend and spent some time getting to know one another. 

Happiness is obvious when one has wine in hand.

While we were there, Jessica (also our tour guide) asked if we wanted lunch. That was an interesting offer. I had planned on heading out for lunch after the tasting, so I was up for it. She made us a wild mushroom risotto that was the perfect thing to fill up our bellies after all of that wine.

Once we had our fill of Trione, I realized it was getting on in the day. It was already 3pm! I headed over to Route 128 for the next tasting. This was a tasting room in a strip mall. You don't see things like that in Raleigh, that's for sure! I only tasted a few ounces here as I was well on my way to the "you are not allowed to drive now" point. 

After Route 128, I made a quick stop back to Geyser Peak where I picked up a bottle of that fantastic Sparkling Shiraz. I ran into the same guy I had received my tasting from earlier in the day and he told me he just hadn't opened a bottle yet when I was there.  Mmmhmmm... Oh well. I brought some home with me. 

One last stop. I made the decision to go up to the Sbragia Winery to round out the day. I drove up there and just sat outside and enjoyed their view until I was ready to head back to my hotel. I had a fantastic day. It was made even better by meeting some nice folks along the way and the fantastic weather that I know I have mentioned a few times already. I had absolutely no problem going into any of the wineries by myself and really enjoyed talking to all of the people who were running the tastings. Unfortunately, I had to go to work on Monday so I went back to the hotel at 5pm and promptly fell asleep. Ha!

I found these pictures on my memory card from the end of the day. I thought they were interesting, so I decided to add them to the end of this post. They were both taken looking at the same grape vine. One was from the ground, up and the other was looking down onto the baby grapes. Both had almost the exact same settings on my camera, I just changed the shutter speed. (Don't mind me, I'm a new dslr camera user and get excited by little things).