One of the most beautiful places to visit in California is wine country.  For most, the sheer number of tastings and unique events is large enough draw to keep them coming back year after year.  There are over 700 active wineries in the surrounding region, so there’s certainly no shortage of activities and places to visit and sample fine wine.  But doing so without looking like a total neophyte or tourist can be a bit tricky.  There are some simple ways to blend in and squeeze every last drop out of your wine tasting adventure.

 Sonoma Winery Map

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There's a genuine case to be made that Robert Mondavi made California wine a success, through tireless evangelizing and education on his part (and that of his winery) in the seventies and eighties, when to a lot of people, wine meant Gallo jug wines, or "the good stuff," imported from centuries old European wineries.

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A fair number of people routinely shop for wine at Trader Joe's, and no, I'm not just talking about shopping for "Two Buck Chuck" Charles Shaw wines by the case. I've tried Charles Shaw, and honestly, their moment of fame is long gone. But Trader Joe's offers a lot more; they offer a number of wines from recognizable California, and in Washington, at least, even Washington wineries, and they import wine from all over the world. In the last few years, Trader Joe's has even bottled their own wines, using names like Trader Moon and, recently Trader Joe, on varietal wines from California, South America, and Europe.

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I've been shopping at the Bargain Grocery Outlet (BGO) for a little over a year. It's a chain of grocery stores selling items that they've purchased at huge discounts, so they can pass on savings to customers. The items are often discontinued because they label art has been changed, or other cosmetic reasons; it's all perfectly good. BGOs carry produce, meat, dairy, frozen products, chocolate, coffee, canned goods, household items, and a few seasonal items. They also carry beer and wine, and more often than not you can pick up both at some pretty incredible prices.

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I've written about Gallo Family Vineyard Twin Valley wines before, including the Gallo Twin Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, and the Gallo Twin Valley Hearty Burgundy. Like both of the previous Gallo Twin Valley wines, the Sauvignon Blanc is a non-vintage wine from California. These are table wines, meant to be affordable, readily available, and perfect for buying spontaneously to accompany dinner.

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This Red Diamond Merlot is the most fruit-forward of all the Washington Merlot I've tasted. I suspect it may be because it's a blend of Merlot 80%, Syrah 15%, Cabernet Franc 3%, Cabernet Sauvignon 2%. The Merlot is still very present, with a tannic finish. I love, in particular, the aroma. This is also quite attractive in the glass, though not as dark a red as I'd expect from a Merlot. About an hour after my first glass, the aroma has opened up quite a lot, as has the flavor. There's definite plum and blackberry here, and a slightly softer tannic finish than on the first glass.

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In my quest to discover for reliable table wines, I've been working my way through California winery Barefoot Wines' list. I've written about Barefoot Pinot Grigio, and Barefoot Pinot Noir.

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A lot of people have written wine in a glassabout the recent research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that suggests women who drink moderate amounts of red wine are less likely to gain as much weight as women who do not drink any alcohol, or those who drink liquor. Mostly, they're getting it wrong.

In 1997 a medical instructor and researcher, Lu Wang, at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston, with the aid of colleagues, surveyed 19,220 American women aged 39 or older with a healthy body weight a number of questions about their drinking habits. About 38% of the women responded that they did not drink any alcohol. All the women were followed for thirteen years, and the data was collected.

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We all know that wine labels are important, and that they should provide us with information about the wine. But American wine labels, particularly for consumer table wines, can be awfully confusing. For one thing, in terms of the law, in America as long as at least 75% of the wine comes from the grape variety named on the label, it's considered a varietal wine. A bottle that says Cabernet Sauvignon may well be 25% Shiraz, and 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, or some other blend. For some, this is a horrific disclosure; for my part, I'm fine with it, but I do wish that wineries would be more transparent about what they are putting in the bottle. It's not going to affect how the wine tastes to know, and it is interesting information.

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To be fair, this is only the second Pinot Noir I've had, and the first was an older, aged French wine. This is this year's "new" Barefoot Wines Pinot Noir, and honestly, at the bargain basement price of $4.89 a bottle at a Fred Meyer grocery store, I'm not sure I should expect much. There's a sticker on the bottle prominently marking it as a "New Release," so I take that as a reasonable caveat.

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