Matanzas Days of Wine & Lavender, Sonoma
On Saturday, we were at
Matanzas Creek Winery, in
Sonoma County's newest appellation area,
Bennett Valley, to attend their
wonderful "Days of Wine & Lavender" festival.
I think this is our third year in a row.
This event has fallen on the same weekend
as some dorky auto race at Sears Point, so the traffic can
be iffy, but it's nice despite all that.
We invited Deb's
brother and his wife, and rented a house a few blocks away
from the square in Sonoma. The house was very nicely
decorated and designed — I think this was the first time
that I can recall going somewhere with Deb and having her
say that she didn't need to rearrange or redecorate anything!
The weather was mighty close to perfect, not too hot, but
sunny. We camped for a while at the picnic tables above
the main grounds, to enjoy the great Sonoma cheeses, the
catered picnic-ish feast, and the Matanzas' great Merlots
and Cabs.
My weblog entries from
previous
years
include
pictures; I'll add this year's pictures after I find
my camera's stupidly unique upload cable.
Sunday, we visited B R Cohn Winery,
a must for a number of reasons — their Pinot Noir, their beautiful
olive trees and gourmet olive oil, and because Deb's sister's uncle is
the Doobie Brothers' Pat Simmons, and Bruce Cohn was their manager for
a lot of years.
Later on Sunday, we visited
Kenwood Vineyards, where we happened upon another special event.
In this setup, they featured six or so of their wines, and paired each
with a food dish, which they served in bite-sized samples along with
the wine, so you could taste how it worked with that dish.
Traffic wasn't too bad heading home, but I think we'll try to take
off the Friday and the Monday next year.
11:03:16 PM
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