We purchased this wine a few months back while wine tasting in Sonoma. (https://wineandcheesefriday.com/hawley-wine-tasting-healdsburg-ca/) We couldn’t pass up such a delicious wine, especially one that is the final vintage from that vineyard. As we’ve mentioned before, we choose cheeses based on which wines we have waiting at home. We tasted this cheese during our tour of Cowgirl Creamery, https://wineandcheesefriday.com/cowgirl-creamery-tour-and-point-reyes/. Knowing this cheese had some funk, we thought a Pinot Noir would be a great match. It’s always exciting to have a local wine and cheese to pair!
As a Thank You Gift, our Swiss friends Benno and Nora brought us some wine from their recent trip to Canada. Have you heard of the wine region called Okanagan Valley? It’s another up and coming region to keep your eye on. As you might expect, its located near a big lake. Today’s wine is from British Columbia’s oldest family run winery, Gray Monk (www.graymonk.com), and features their Pinot Gris grapes, the signature white grape of the region. How exciting to get to try grapes from another nearby winemaking region.
It’s been over a year since we visited any Sonoma vineyards so we took a trip out when Benno and Nora were here. We had a chance to visit a few places that day but today’s entry will be about Wilson Winery. (http://wilsonwinery.com) We heard about Wilson Winery from the lady at the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce and saw that they had food available too so we planned to have lunch there that day. This was our first time visiting the Dry Creek Valley region of Sonoma so we were excited to taste another area’s terroir!
When we visited Healdsburg at the beginning of the month for the Sapphire Hill Food and Wine Pairing Lunch, http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/120785672765/sapphire-hill-food-and-wine-pairing-lunch-we-had,
we did a wine tasting at the Hawley Wine Tasting Room (www.hawleywine.com) to start the day. Neil and I have visited Healdsburg a few times and knew there were many wine tasting rooms but it’s so hard to choose when given that many options. We headed over to the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce for some advice. The woman there was so helpful! She not only had suggestions for tastings in Healdsburg, but also gave us an idea for dinner, charcuterie, and vineyards North of the area. What a great idea to head there upon arrival to Healdsburg! One of her favorite places was Hawley Winery because they have nice whites and reds and we were all looking for something a little different.
We had some friends in town from Switzerland so we headed up to Sonoma over the weekend. We made reservations for a wine tasting lunch at Sapphire Hill (www.sapphirehill.com) and couldn’t wait to experience it! Sapphire Hill is located in a wine tasting plaza in Healdsburg, CA with around 5 other tasting rooms, so there is plenty of wine to be enjoyed there! This was our second time visiting this part of Healdsburg (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/55233637275/healdsburg-fun-sunday-7-7-its-your-lucky-day) but there is always so much to see and do there.
When we purchased this Zinfandel back in the summer at Cline Cellars (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/95170593813/cline-cellars-red-blend-and-toscano-cheese-with) we were told to hold onto it for about 6 months before opening it. Having patiently put our time in, we decided to use it this week for WineAndCheeseFriday. Zinfandel is a wine Neil and I both enjoy but not knowing if it will have pepper spice flavors or jammy fruit flavors, it is always one that’s hard to pair with cheese. We have never tried a Basque cheese so we figured we’d see how it worked with our mystery wine.