Bay Area Trip Day 17 (Still more wine tasting)

We are at a point in our wine tasting extravaganza that we have pretty well settled into our tastes of specifically what we like and don't like, which makes it very hard to find exactly what we're looking for, while at the same time we have to find three more wines to fill the case that we will be travelling home with.

The first stop was at Black Stallion Winery, which had a really lovely property. I also appreciated that the staff was not into high pressure sales, most places try to keep you at their tasting bar and keep you talking, but Black Stallion encouraged you to take your wine, go sit outside or look around the property then come back to get your next taste. While I liked the atmosphere, and the property, I wasn't such a fan of the wines, maybe because I'm at a point in the trip where I've gotten very picky, or maybe because their wines were very tannen heavy which I'm not so keen on, but either way I was a little underwhelmed by their wines, which was too bad, because I really wanted to like their stuff.

(photo by Ursa Davis)

After Black Stallion, we went over to one of the oldest wineries in the area, Regusci Winery. Many of the wineries in this area are home to large, ornate visitor centers and tasting rooms, and this one had one as well but the feel of it was more inviting, more social, less presumptuous. This had the feel of a working farm, albeit an extraordinarily nice, new, and manicured farm, but a farm nonetheless. And their wines were quite good as well.
Our last stop of the day was probably the best, James Cole. It had a young, hip staff and great pours. The prices there were a little higher than we would have liked to been paying but we splurged on two bottles there anyway, their 2011 old vine red blend called Il Mostro. The second was a spectacular 2011 Merlot Icewine. One usually doesn't see merlot grapes used in a dessert wine but James Cole managed to do it to great effect. It brought the flavor back from the overly rich sweetness that many dessert wines are, to a milder flavor that was stellar.

(photo by Ursa Davis)