This summer, I will be traveling to several regions of Italy touring wineries, dining in restaurants and participating in leisure cooking classes and reporting on them here.
Please let me know if there is something I can help you with in regards to your travels to wine country.
-Robbin
I’ve updated the route map above. Check it out!
Also, I got stuck in the hail coming out of a Siena supermarket. I took a little video.
Many have asked where I will be going for my language course. At Dante Alighieri in Siena, I will be taking 15 hours of group class, 4 hours of private lesson and 2 culinary courses per week. Here is where the school is located:
Italian Wines with David Lynch at Maslow6
Location: 66 West Broadway New York, NY 10007
Link out: Click here
Description: Join David Lynch for an in-depth tasting of the
Nebbiolo grape in its many incarnations.
Start Time: 6:30
Date: 2009-05-12
It’s true that you can generalize about North v. South in Northern Hemisphere. It’s cooler in the north and warmer in the south. Warmer climates mean riper grapes so a southerly wine will be fuller and fruitier right?
Now this is where wine starts getting its bad reputation for being complicated because now we have to think about microclimates.
Generally speaking, this is the climate of a smaller part of the region at large. (Actually, the correct term is mesoclimate and microclimate is actually whats going on in the canopy and smaller bits of the vineyard. But this is something all of us use incorrectly, just like variety v. varietal.)
The Los Carneros AVA that runs along the southern borders of Sonoma and Napa county is a perfect example of how the south isn’t cooler than the north and it has everything to do with topography. 
The northern border of Carneros is right where the Sonoma Mountain ridge starts to get taller. These mountains keep the Pacific Ocean breezes and fog from reaching the valley and as the valley heats up, it actually helps the low settling fog at the lowest part of the range to be pulled in across the vineyards of Carneros.
I tasted two different Pinot Noirs at the new urban tasting room in San Francisco, Winery Collective. Bryan indulged Thea and I with a little blind tasting / shell game and my first assumptions were correct.
Both Russian River Valley AVA and Carneros are considered on the cool side of wine growing areas but one wine was full bodied, slightly more alcoholic and more extracted in its flavors. The second was a little more reserved and just felt like it came from a cooler place.
The Carneros Pinot Noir was the 06 Canihan Family Cellars and the Russian River Valley Pinot Noir was the 06 Stemmler Nugent Vineyard Pinot Noir.
TOURING INFORMATION
Canihan Family Cellars does not list any public tasting room.
Stemmler Nugent Vineyard tasting room directions can be found here.
Save yourself the trouble of driving and see the great new, multi-winery tasting room right in San Francisco at The Cannery: The Winery Collective.
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I can’t really say that thought I would be spending Spring Break in Lodi, California. It’s certainly far from any tropical or exotic destination I hear most of my friends embarked upon (Argentina, Paris…) but for a person fully invested in the study of the wines of the world, when an educational opportunity presents itself, however random the destination, one goes.
There is a windfarm on I-580 heading out of the East Bay and when I used to live in the area, I called coming upon this landmark as the gateway to the middle of nowhere. I must admit, I’d never continued due east before, I’d always hung a right and made my way through the San Joaquin Valley on my way to LA.
The weekend of California Delta wines began with a workshop from the Lodi Rules council. This is not simply a declaration of how “rad” Lodi wines are but a list of sustainability practices that local winemakers have collaborated in writing and voluntarily follow.
It’s this kind of straight lecture and presentation that really tests my patience when I know I’m an experiential learner. I glaze over when there is just too much blah, blah, blah. I do find the concept commendable for such a small region.
As my travels become more extensive and the more I get to talk to winemakers face to face without the pressures of giant trade tastings in NYC, I’m discovering that the wines I seem find of the highest quality come from those who are the most insanely enthusiastic in person.
For this trip, the winemaker I remember the most from the wines in the glass and the enthusiasm in the vineyard is Markus Bokisch from Bokisch Vineyards. 
Although I can spew some sarcasm, I don’t think I will ever get over being very literal. I had noticed that Markus had his first few rows of Albariño in his backyard vineyard were quite a bit lower than the rest and of course I started thinking about all the viticultural reasons for such low training. Someone else beat me to the question about this and I prepared myself for a lengthy explanation.
“I wanted to be able to actually see my property from my porch,” he said. And my literal, over-thinking self was put right back in my place.
Read Randy Caparoso’s account of the entire weekend on the Sommelier Journal website.
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Someday I will learn how to make a living doing this….
Coming Up:
Wanderlust travel readings at Idlewild Bookstore March 4
Vinho Verde workshop sponsored by the Comissão do Viticultura da Região dos Vinhos Verdes March 5
Tre Bicchieri grand tasting of Italian wines March 6
Sommelier Journal Terroir Experience in Lodi, Amador and El Dorado, California March 9-11
Russian River Wine Road barrel tasting weekend March 14-15
James Beard Foundation Greens Event - Stinky and Sticky (cheese and dessert wine pairing) March 18
Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival April 16-19
Large trip of unknown destination Late April?
East coast wine bloggers gathering May 1-3
Wine Bloggers Conference July 24-26
Done:
ZAP’s Zinfandel Festival
NY Times Travel Show
Languedoc Workshop
Gala Italia
Sensofwine
Return to Terroir
Jenny & Francois portfolio tasting
Maslow6 Natural Winemakers Seminar and Dinner
Snooth Open That Bottle Night dinner
Maslow6 presents Francois Thienpont and the Right Bank
…but check out my WBW post on The Tawny Times. A tasting post about Brachetto d’Acqui.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the first Finger Lakes Palate event upstate. Please head to the official site or read about it from my friend Melissa Dobson.
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The New York Times Travel Show wasn’t exactly what I expected! One thing thats not quite clear in the literature is that “trade day” is really meant for travel agents, not operators. I went to a couple of workshops and I picked up a few tidbits of information but everything was focused on how to make your travel agency a better business. (Even worse, a WRITING workshop ended up being a junket in a slideshow.) On the positive side, I did meet a few nice agents who are interested in culinary and wine options in the future.
I got a much better perspective on the travel industry from the consumer days. I observed how destinations where marketed and attended a few more consumer oriented workshops that seemed much more relevant than anything I heard on trade day!
Of course I had to stop by to see what Samantha Brown had to say. The questions from the audience were quite interesting. They weren’t really about her or the show but asking her about destinations like she was just a really famous travel agent! One thing I didn’t realize is that she has been on the Travel Channel for 10 years now! She certainly does know a thing or two about travel at this point and graciously gave advice on the places she’s been. Considering I want to be a hybrid of her, Andrea Immer Robinson and Nigella Lawson, I’ve started looking for acting classes after she said she got the job as a “regular” audition as an actress. (And an amusing story about chasing down a plane!)
I also attended a workshop on solo & women travel. I’m actually quite surprised at the number of women in the audience who said they’d never traveled alone when its all I’ve ever done. The few times I have traveled with others, I start to get frustrated that I’ve lost the freedom to change my mind and do something different.
The afternoon Travel Writing 201 workshop was the most beneficial. Not necessarily in how to get published but more on tips and tricks on traveling with technology and gathering web 2.0 fans.
I connected with Katie Parla on Twitter before the weekend started and she told me all about what she does in Rome and working with Context Travel. I hope I can work with both of them soon.
