Monthly Wino's Gathering

Saturday, November 17, 2008

Today was our monthly gathering of the "winos". The theme today was "Wines from Amador, Alameda, Calaveras, Contra Costa and San Joaquin Counties". These counties are in a contiguous line from the Sierra Foothills to the bay. There were 24 wines conforming to the theme and 3 wines that did not. Along with 4 dessert wines

The strange thing is that the 3 non-conforming wines were all the same wine (year, producer and varietal) . They were from "El Dorado" county which is next to Amador County but it was not on the list. I don't know if these 3 people don't know their states geography or if they couldn't be bothered to find a wine from the correct area. Everyone else seemed to be able to find wines that fit the theme, so I have not figured out what their problem was.

I also find it very strange that the 2 Turley Zinfandels were emptied way before the other bottles were half gone. We use 1 oz pourer's so everyone gets a chance to taste all the wines. It seems whenever there is a really good bottle brought it disappears fast. Makes me become very suspicious that one or more persons are taking more that their one pour. (this is a known fact and a few of us know who you are).

As always the food was abundant and good. The hosts made a spanish sausage stuffed beef roast which was excellent.

I had a friend visiting from Australia with me and he was quite taken with our whole concept. I had taken him to a couple of wine tastings at the local wine stores. They apparently do not have that in Australia, which is their loss. He had a great time and really enjoyed Lisa & Oliver's spicy fried chicken.

We had gone to BevMo for a bubbly tasting and he was looking at the wines in the Australian section. Most of them he had never heard of of and speculated that they were made specifically for export and he considered most of them "swill". I wonder if the "swill" wines we export are as popular as the Aussies "swill" here.