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Livermore Wine Country

Debbi and her best friend Lisa usually do something over the weekend between their birthdays. I think the last few years they've gone to Disneyland. This year they decided to go to the Livermore Valley wine country, and Lisa's fiance Michel and myself went along.

It was a very nice, laid-back trip. We set out Saturday morning after breakfast at the Original Pancake House (an increasingly regular breakfast joint for Debbi and myself), and headed out to Livermore.

I was the only one of us who had been there before, and in fact I might have been the one who told them that Livermore even has a wine country. It seems to be a pretty well-kept secret, given the popularity of Napa and Sonoma to the north. But Livermore has several advantages over those two:

1. It's only an hour's drive from the South Bay - maybe less, with a little luck.
2. Most wineries don't charge for wine tastings, while those in Napa and Sonoma tend to charge $5-$10 per tasting. If you hit six wineries, then you can spend that $30 on two or three bottles of wine instead!
3. Many wineries offer as many as twenty different wines in a tasting.
4. The wine ain't half-bad, neither!

Saturday we hit five wineries on the way into town, which took most of the afternoon. We were particularly taken with the very first one we hit, Tenuta Vineyards, which is in fact the newest winery in the Livermore area (there are 9 more wineries in the area than there were when I was there 4 years ago!). Tenuta has a lively tasting room with a patio outside, and very friendly people working the room (including the owner!).

We also liked the wines at Thomas Coyne Winery and Fenestra Winery, although the latter was extremely crowded - not sure whether it was the time of day (mid-afternoon) or if it just attracts more people. LVC we appreciated for their irreverent attitude, though their wines ran to a drier side than I prefer. We finished the afternoon at Wente Vineyards, which I think is the biggest winery in Livermore, and felt like it (they were hosting a wedding when we arrived, and attract some big names in their concert series). They were also one of only two wineries we visited which charged for tastings, and I was feeling pretty sozzled by this point, so I passed on them. (Don't worry, Debbi was driving this weekend, giving her new car its second road trip.)

We stayed at a hotel on the north side of town near I-580, and had dinner at a grill which had decent but not really notable food, in large quantities, with mediocre service. Overall we were not unhappy, but it could have been better. At least we came away stuffed with food. We spent some time in the hotel's hot tub, then Debbi and I watched the end of the Giants game and went to bed.

Two more notes on Saturday: It was quite warm this weekend, and I think I was fighting off a mild virus on top of getting sozzled, since I was pretty exhausted much of the day, even from when we got up. I slept pretty soundly and for over nine hours, and felt much better the next day.

Sunday we checked out around 11 am, which was a bit tricky since the wineries are generally only open 12-5. We decided to take the scenic route and drive down Route 84 to the two wineries the farthest from our hotel, hoping they'd be open by the time we got there. We nearly didn't find them, since they're up the long, winding Palomares Rd in unincorporated Contra Costa Country, but we did make our way along the beautiful Niles Canyon Rd and up Palomares to the wineries.

We stopped first at Chouinard Winery (which I think is pronounced "KWEY-nard" but they might pronounce "CHOW-i-nard" - I forgot to ask them). I'd been here (and to the next place) on my trip to Livermore with Karen in 2000, and had remembered it fondly. They have some excellent orange muscats, and many other wines besides. I especially liked their zinfandel port. The woman who co-owns the place was very friendly and we asked her quite a few questions about winemaking which she answered. Very educational!

Our last stop, Westover Winery, which is a very small winery which does all their own bottling and relies heavily on volunteers (sounds like Debbi and Lisa might be interested in volunteering at some point). They showed us their bottling machine, and they had several good wines. Apparently they're about to branch out into a large variety of ports, too. (Can you tell Debbi and I love port?) They're the other winery which charges for tastings - $2 per glass, but they waive the fee if you buy something. A pretty decent compromise, I think.

By the way, between these last two places we sampled over 20 wines. Wow.

By this point we were pretty loaded up with wines (I mean, our car was pretty loaded up; we were actually doing pretty well), so we decided to call it a weekend and headed home. After dropping off Lisa and Michel, Deb and I relaxed at home for the rest of the afternoon. It was very hot in Silicon Valley today, and all four cats were just lounging around trying to keep cool. I think the four of them did okay on our weekend away - the first time all four got to cohabitate alone for more than a few hours (our last vacation together the kittens were still confined to the front room). I think Jefferson and Newton introduced the kittens to the wonders of forcing open my closet doors and lying in the cool darkness within.

It was a nice weekend away. Now I just need to figure out where to put all this wine - my wine rack is already full! We'd better get drinking!