A Walk Down Della Street

With our limited time left, we are doing many activities.   Today, we went wine tasting in Sonoma, following some of Matt's suggestions when he was here last week, and also, the suggestion of a friend of mine.
We started at Williamson winery in Healdsburg, and loved it.   They do a wine tasting and food pairing, with a guy who went to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America).   It was fascinating---he'd give us a taste of one of their wines, like the Cabernet Sauvignon, then a bite of cheese with truffle salt on it, explaining how the taste of the wine brings out the flavors.    He did this with that wine, a Chardonnay, a Viognier, a Pinot noir, and a Merlot.   Every wine had a different food with it, with his explanation about how the wine would interact with the food.   He was right, all the time.   It was so interesting to do this, I highly recommend it!   Of course, it's hard to remember everything he said, but it taught me a better way to appreciate wine.

We next went to Wilson, where they had many kinds of Zinfindel.    (Zins, to you, Trudi!)

We liked them a lot, and bought a bottle of one of them.    Next, we went to Raymond Burr's winery!  yes, Perry Mason has a winery.   Actually, Raymond Burr is dead, but his partner is not, and he is the one who established the winery.   There was Raymond Burr ephemeral all over the winery, but it's really quite a cool place, sort of western and casual, in a beautiful area of Sonoma.

After that, we went to Zichichi, where we tasted wine from the barrel.  You taste it while it's still in the barrel, and if you buy some, which we did, you get it when they bottle it, which will be next fall.   It's called "futures."     We think, and hope, we like the wine, it was another Zin.   Fun to do, though costly!
But we've not done very much wine tasting this year anyway.
Later, went to see "The Green Zone", which Dan did not like.   I thought it was o.k., not great.
Pat


 The Green Zone was one explosion after another. The camera never was still, and wobbled through the entire movie. It was hard to hear the dialogue from all of the explosions. I felt like I was watching a video game created by a drunk. The plot was honorable, pointing out that the Iraq war was based on false information. It was just hard for me to get to the plot from all of the special effects.

Wine tasting was a great thing to do on a rainy day in Sonoma. Yes all of you Michiganders, I know it is sunny and warm. One difference between California and Michigan is that you do not get the dramatic change of weather in California. In Michigan, the slight tinge of green and the sun and the warmer weather then comes and goes and comes again. Spring creeps up on you in California and all of a sudden you see an explosion of color from flowers and trees. So those of you who have endured the gloomy winter and spring, enjoy the great weather.
Dan