Pinot Days

Saturday. January 15, 2011

Headed off to the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport for a Pinot tasting. Paid extra to get a VIP ticket which got me in 2 hours early and had a "tour" of the Sta Rita Hills producers with Wes Hagen of Clos Pepe. This is the second year for this event.

98 wine producers were there, each pouring from 3 to 6 wines each. Naturally you cannot taste much less drink all of them So it was a pick and choose.

The wineries that I tasted from were, Cargasacchi, Clos Pepe (4 year vertical), Gypsy Canyon (beautiful hand blown bottles), Inception, Ken Brown, Loring, Melville, Olivia Brion, Papapieto Perry (his 777 clone was under the table - good wine) Prodigal, Rozak, and maybe a couple of others. But at this time I had more than enough wine, my palate was gone, I had to drive 45 miles home and I had a 5:30 dinner set up.

We definitely go back in 2012. A good venue and the ticket price was reasonable for what you got. The hangar is a hangar. Concrete floors, not too many places to sit, altho this year they did have a small cafe set up with tables and chairs. The acoustics are terrible but with all the loud talking you just seemed to get into the "mood" little faster.