While I’m primarily focused on wine tasting road trips I like to mention special wines that I pick up along the trails.  One of those is Chateau Christina Cab from the Pedregal Vineyard in San Benito County near Salinas, CA.

This vineyard sits on the famous San Andreas Fault and the soil has been churned for millions of years.  I’m finding a very dry Cab with noticeable tannins that is a bit different than the mainsteam Cabs. On day 2 of tasting it holds up great and becomes more interesting.

This wine is available in the Joyce Vineyards tasting room in the Village of Carmel Valley in Monterey County.

You may want to play with this one. Much more fun than most.

- jim

We recently finished-off a bottle of Jessie’s Grove Winery Old Vine 05 Lodi Zinfandel.  We were reminded of two things:

1) Lodi Zins are often terrific and this one is no exception. We loved the strong rich flavors and nose.  All to often we drink wine that has a great nose but not much to taste.  This Zin doesn’t disappoint if you are looking for robust but still soft on the finish.

2) Jessie’s Grove Winery is a ranch with a wine tasting room.  There are a few farm animals around, a huge barn, and a desert tortoise that is sometimes lively.

Besides the wine and tortoise the real attraction here is the preserved ancient oak savanna from pre-European times.  Walk into the oaks for a little glimpse of the past at a little museum and wonderful picnic grounds.  Buy their wine and hangout for a while.

- jim

Katya and I don’t like to tell tasters what they will taste. That’s because we frequently don’t taste what others tell us we should.  However, I will mention wines that are interesting and unusual.

The Sol Rouge Winery in Santa Rosa makes one of the more interesting Cabs that I’ve ever tasted.  It tastes of green kalamata olives.  Bryan Kane, the vintner, told us that the Napa vineyard soils create this unusual condition.

We sipped from our prized bottle for four evenings and the wine held up very well.

This wine is fun and pairs well with dark chocolate.

It is available in the Winery Collective tasting room near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.  This tasting room is owned by a few vintners and hosts wines from all over California.

- jim