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 played Zinzig about a year ago (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/90778737878/zinzig-and-gjetost-neil-and-i-were-invited-to ) and couldn’t wait to have a rematch! The funny thing is that we really didn’t remember how to play. After another look at the rules, we were off. This time for an added challenge we all chose to bring a Zinfandel wine.
We had some friends in town from Switzerland so when I saw the Swiss flag on this cheese, it seemed like a good choice. We didn’t expect to learn so much by eating a “swiss cheese” with Swiss people. The wine is a sparking wine that we picked up on our recent trip to Lake County (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/119076681308/lake-county-wine-tasting-in-order-to-celebrate) and the tasting notes for the cheese appeared to be a good pairing for the wine flavors.
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.
Neil and I heard about and event called “Cheese Makes Me Happy Hour”, how could we resist? It is an event regularly held at the Cheese School of San Francisco on Wednesday evenings through the end of September. (http://thecheeseschool.com/products/cheese-makes-me-happy-hour) Not only do you get to enjoy a bunch of tasty cheeses but they give you a token for a glass of wine or beer and put out quite a spread of tasty offerings.
book written by George M. Taber, Time Magazine writer
I am a wine enthusiast who loves to learn, that’s what drew me to this field. When I first started out a few years back, I watched about five “wine movies” to get started with some wine knowledge. It still surprises me how much you can pick up when you really want to learn. One of those movies that I always go back to is Bottle Shock. When I saw the book Judgment of Paris — California vs France and the historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine at the library, I figured it was worth a read since I already had a loose idea of the story. I never realized I would end up enjoying the book so much that I constantly had to keep taking notes!