Recently, I spent a gorgeously warm and sunny Saturday in Livermore, one of the lesser visited wine regions in Northern California, yet one that is known for consistently producing high quality wine. While I am very familiar with Concanon's and Wente's wines, due to their wide availability in most major grocery stores, I realized, while that those were indeed the ONLY two wineries I knew in the area. Taking advantage of two same-week deals on LivingSocial and TravelZoo, I reserved a mini-tasting event for myself in Livermore. I purchased a winery tour complete with a free tasting and 1 bottle to take home from McGrail Vineyards and Winery, along with a free tasting and 2 bottles to take home from Crooked Vine Stony Ridge Wineries. My first destination was McGrail and I must admit, that I began to have reservations while driving along the dusty road to the winery that gave an impression of a "middle of nowhere" establishment, much different from the lush, green landscapes usually seen in the Napa Valley. However, as soon as I drove through the front gate, my misgivings were quickly dispelled when I saw how elegant the tasting room looked from the outside.
Our tour was led by Ginger McGrail, the co-owner of the winery. She was very informative during our wallk through the vines and gave us a brief history of the winery from its beginning is 1999 up to its Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon's win in the Chronicle competition best of class.
We were treated to the winery's Rosé and Chardonnay as we walked along the vines. We were then ushered inside, in the barrel room, adjacent to the tasting room, where a folding table and chairs were set up surrounded by barrels on each side. While I thought that the whites are good, I generally prefer reds, so I was delighted to taste the limited-edition Patriot Cabernet Sauvignon (a wine conceived in honor of local law-enforcement officers fallen in the line of duty with proceeds donated to the related agencies). The wine was absolutely sublime. Slightly fruitier and less oaky then a regular Cabernet, it was full of flavor and had a wonderful finish. The Reserve Cabernet (the award-winner) did not impress me as much to be honest, but then again I am only an amateur, not a professional wine-critic, so what do I know? The A Jo Elet Cabernet and the Syrah were also quite good, but none eclipsed the Patriot Cabernet in my opinion.
Therefore, I could barely contain my excitement when it turned out that the Patriot would be the take-home wine along with two McGrail wine glasses. Being the clumsy guy I am, I've already broke one out of two glasses, but at least I made it home with both of them in one piece. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at McGrail, loved the fact that the tour was led by the owner who answered what could only be described as an exhaustive barrage of questions from an elderly gentleman from Michigan who, although seemingly quite knowledgeable about wines, treated the tour as more of a "quiz the owner" event. Still, though a bit tedious, all the questions he posed gave less knowledgeable people such as myself an opportunity to be privy to the more intimate details of a smaller wine-making business. In fact, I learned that despite the winery's success, both Ginger and her husband Jim still have different day jobs, but are both hoping to be able to focus on wine-making full time as soon as that will be financially possible.
I left McGrail with a smile on my face and drove down to Croked Vine, only a few miles away. The tasting room looked nice from the outside, yet nowhere nearly as elegant as McGrail's
Right away, the inside felt less intimate and more like a regular tasting room. The lady that poured the wine was very friendly though and gave us some very good tasting notes. I found out that Stony Ridge is the boutique label of Crooked Vine and was allowed to pick six wines to try from a pretty expansive list. In trying to be fair, i chose three from the Crooked Vine side of the tasting menu and three from the other. I especially enjoyed the Cabernet Franc, but I though that most of the wines I tried were pretty average and was surprised at the high price tag as per tasting menu. Still, the tasting was pleasant. The two take-home wines were the less-than impressive Cabernet Sauvignon, and the delicious Sangiovese, an Italian-style wine that I would describe as the ideal pairing with pretty much any food with strong flavor and spice. Bold, yet aromatic and refined.
However, I feel that the real find was Crooked Vine's homemade raspberry mustard, described as the perfect mustard for homemade pretzels. It was so good that I bought a jar along with a jar of the equally amazing balsamic mustard. I left less satisfied with the wine, but entirely ecstatic about the mustard. Overall, I loved my Livermore wine-tasting experience and would love returning for a second visit to McGrail as well as exploring some of the other local wineries. The area has a smaller, homelier feel than Napa and it is very apparent the growers and winemakers have bonded together to bring more traffic to the area, since both McGrail and Crooked Vine offered extensive recommendations of other wineries in the area worth visiting. I also appreciated the complete and utter lack of snobbery, self-assuredness, and condescension that can sometimes be directed towards the more amateurish wine enthusiasts such as myself in some of the Napa tasting rooms. Instead, my experience was one of boundless hospitality and warmth, for which I am more than thankful.
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We were treated to the winery's Rosé and Chardonnay as we walked along the vines. We were then ushered inside, in the barrel room, adjacent to the tasting room, where a folding table and chairs were set up surrounded by barrels on each side. While I thought that the whites are good, I generally prefer reds, so I was delighted to taste the limited-edition Patriot Cabernet Sauvignon (a wine conceived in honor of local law-enforcement officers fallen in the line of duty with proceeds donated to the related agencies). The wine was absolutely sublime. Slightly fruitier and less oaky then a regular Cabernet, it was full of flavor and had a wonderful finish. The Reserve Cabernet (the award-winner) did not impress me as much to be honest, but then again I am only an amateur, not a professional wine-critic, so what do I know? The A Jo Elet Cabernet and the Syrah were also quite good, but none eclipsed the Patriot Cabernet in my opinion.
Therefore, I could barely contain my excitement when it turned out that the Patriot would be the take-home wine along with two McGrail wine glasses. Being the clumsy guy I am, I've already broke one out of two glasses, but at least I made it home with both of them in one piece. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at McGrail, loved the fact that the tour was led by the owner who answered what could only be described as an exhaustive barrage of questions from an elderly gentleman from Michigan who, although seemingly quite knowledgeable about wines, treated the tour as more of a "quiz the owner" event. Still, though a bit tedious, all the questions he posed gave less knowledgeable people such as myself an opportunity to be privy to the more intimate details of a smaller wine-making business. In fact, I learned that despite the winery's success, both Ginger and her husband Jim still have different day jobs, but are both hoping to be able to focus on wine-making full time as soon as that will be financially possible.
I left McGrail with a smile on my face and drove down to Croked Vine, only a few miles away. The tasting room looked nice from the outside, yet nowhere nearly as elegant as McGrail's
Right away, the inside felt less intimate and more like a regular tasting room. The lady that poured the wine was very friendly though and gave us some very good tasting notes. I found out that Stony Ridge is the boutique label of Crooked Vine and was allowed to pick six wines to try from a pretty expansive list. In trying to be fair, i chose three from the Crooked Vine side of the tasting menu and three from the other. I especially enjoyed the Cabernet Franc, but I though that most of the wines I tried were pretty average and was surprised at the high price tag as per tasting menu. Still, the tasting was pleasant. The two take-home wines were the less-than impressive Cabernet Sauvignon, and the delicious Sangiovese, an Italian-style wine that I would describe as the ideal pairing with pretty much any food with strong flavor and spice. Bold, yet aromatic and refined.
However, I feel that the real find was Crooked Vine's homemade raspberry mustard, described as the perfect mustard for homemade pretzels. It was so good that I bought a jar along with a jar of the equally amazing balsamic mustard. I left less satisfied with the wine, but entirely ecstatic about the mustard. Overall, I loved my Livermore wine-tasting experience and would love returning for a second visit to McGrail as well as exploring some of the other local wineries. The area has a smaller, homelier feel than Napa and it is very apparent the growers and winemakers have bonded together to bring more traffic to the area, since both McGrail and Crooked Vine offered extensive recommendations of other wineries in the area worth visiting. I also appreciated the complete and utter lack of snobbery, self-assuredness, and condescension that can sometimes be directed towards the more amateurish wine enthusiasts such as myself in some of the Napa tasting rooms. Instead, my experience was one of boundless hospitality and warmth, for which I am more than thankful.
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