Every year Sonoma welcomes people of all walks of life to introduce the newest grapes of the season with a wine tasting event, Annual Barrel Tasting. For those locals in the city of San Francisco, this means a gathering of your most favorite people, a short bus, mimosas and 8+ hours of good times you may or may not remember on Sunday morning. This year’s wine tour included the following players…
Saturday began with an aggressive wake up from Mary, who was ready to start the day around 6:30am. Mind you, we had been out with Milo until around 2:30 am, so I had been asleep for approximately four hours at this point. Thirty or so minutes later I dragged myself out of bed, gave Mary a ride home (that’s right…I still have sleepovers with my friends) and came back to our place to get ready for breakfast.
The key to a solid day in wine country is breakfast. Sure, you can stop on the way and grab 36 mini sandwiches from Burger King, which we’ve done, but starting out the day with a balanced meal will keep you going strong all eight hours. I decided a Burrito Bar was the best bet this year. Scrambled eggs, sausage, sauteed veggies, cheese, guacamole and salsa wrapped up in warm tortillas…what could be more delicious?! Although I take full credit for the breakfast menu, the entire execution was Mary and Kellan…kudos to the chefs!
By 10am we were ready and rearing to go, however our blast off was temporarily delayed due to the late arrival of Lola’s nanny. Since I was going to be gone the entire day I thought it best Lola stay with a friend. Since Greg happens to be totally enamored with the pup, I was thrilled when he offered to take her to the East Bay to visit his family. Around 2pm I received a text message photo with this caption: ”She’s having fun…Hope you guys are too.”
That’s Greg’s nephew, his three legged mini poodle and Lola. You may or may not know Greg, but I know for a fact you’re now in love with him as a result of how adorable this photo is…
So around 10:30 we headed to our first winery. As I mentioned barrel tasting is not just a random Saturday Faturday occasion for my friends, but for all sorts of people…Regina, our personal driver, informed us there were several busses already heading across the Golden Gate.
Regina (Our Personal Driver) & Mark
Upon our arrival to Family Wineries of Dry Creek, we see that three of our fellow buses have already been tasting: Blaire, Brian and my cousin Erin’s crews had also joined their friends for a day in the wine country. The first winery was actually a combination of about six different tasting rooms…everything from bold cabs to sweet sauvs. I’m not much of a wino, but I know what I like!
Milo, Chrissy, Mary and I enjoying our very first tasting of the day.
From there we headed over to Bella Vineyards, which we visit every year. Their caves are so fun during barrel tasting…they have live music, gourmet bbq pork and grists, and of course booze along the way…
It was here we discovered the Tijuana Express! At first glance this motor vehicle appears to be a dirty, filthy taco truck, but once you take a closer look…it’s a fantastic party bus available for rent!
And next we headed to Fritz Underground Winery. By this point in time the the combination of tastings and shotgunning of beers had definitely caught up to a few people…
The only photo I have from inside Fritz winery.
Just as quickly as I had chugged my first couple of tastings, we were asked to leave…Here’s the what went down… Half the group went into the wine processing area (shown above) and through to the tasting room in a matter of minutes. The second half, which I was with, decided to stop and chat with the two wine makers in this processing area for a couple quick tastings. As were were standing around enjoying their tasty reds, Shawn, in his drunken stupor, bet Christie $20 to climb into one of the wine tanks.
(Note: Shawn has only met this group one time prior and that was at the Jersey Shore Party. What Shawn doesn’t know about our friends is that no bet is taken lightly, especially when there’s $20 on the table. One time…I threw down $20 at Savoy just so Mary could get in on a fierce game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. She lost the first two out of three, but at least we stepped up the challenge.)
Aside, Christie began joking with one of the wine makers asking what he would do if she climbed into the tank…He ignorantly replied, “Well I’d give you a kiss…cause I’ve never seen anyone do such a thing.” So now there’s money and a smooch involved…no way she’d turn back. Next thing I knew Mark is laughing hysterically looking into the dark depth of the wine tank and Christie is fully inside, curled up indian style. Unfortunately no one had a camera, not that there was time to take a picture before we were kindly asked to leave.
So the half of us they would no longer served headed down to regale our tale to Regina. She recommended we change our last winery to a place that would better suite our crowd now that we had taken a turn for the worst…
We closed out the day at Dry Creek Vineyards. This place was so beautiful, but unfortunately as we arrived they were closing the doors so we only got one or two tastes inside. Not that we needed anymore. At this point everyone was pretty much in their own world…Lauren had slapped Milo so hard he got a bloody nose, Adrian was making out with Cody, Chrissy was lecturing me on love, etc. Our last photos of the day were taken in the mustard plant fields outside the winery, where as Chrissy was yelling at me about finding Mr. Right, she tripped and fell flat on her face. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it Chrissy?
Our ride home was filled with dancing, napping and In ‘n Out…
All in all…another successful year at Sonoma’s Barrel Tasting.