Things got a little surreal last week. Technically, we were supposed to be taking a mini-vacation with Anne’s parents, tooling around the Santa Rita Hills and the Santa Ynez Valley. Okay, if part of your business is writing about wine, and you’re taking notes and pictures for your blog, it’s kind of hard to call what we were doing a vacation. Except that the better part of the experience was sharing something we love and are passionate about with folks we love and cherish.
If enjoying wine is all about the experience (as opposed to simply analyzing the taste – which is fun, but not all of it), then visiting a tasting room is an experience and a half. What makes it even more fun is connecting, however, briefly with the other folks out tooling around at the same time. Which means a big shout out to Jon Fisher and Michael Doherty, who we ran into at Lafond Winery, on Santa Rosa Rd., in Buellton. They popped in with some female friends at the end of the day and we were really impressed by the way their eyes didn’t glaze over when Mike got rolling on the whole winemaking thing. Mike really loves talking about wine and most of the time, folks love listening to him.
Anne was chatting with another woman who was there as a limo driver, and who had spent time working with Julia Child. Alas, she got away without leaving us her name. What amazing stories. If you’re her and reading this, please, please contact us. We’d love to talk to you some more.
And that’s not even counting all the wonderful wines we tasted earlier that day and before. Those profiles and notes will be coming over the next few weeks. We still have plenty of wines from all the events we attended last spring to cover, as well.
We enjoyed meeting you last week. You may be able to get in touch with the limo driver at rheapeake.com.