Wine Tasting at Byington

This past Saturday I went wine-tasting locally with my friend, Anthony. He and I had done a wine-tasting afternoon back in August, when we visited David Bruce Winery and Thomas Fogarty winery. My original plan for that day had been to visit three wineries, but at the first winery it became evident that we wouldn't have time for all three. Trimming it down to 2 worked really well for that day. We had 2 great visits without feel rushed. And it gave us a clear reason to get back together and do it again. We had to hit that third winery!



Winery #3 from August's trip— the one we skipped— was Byington Winery. It's in the mountains of Los Gatos, perched about 2,000' above San Jose and the Silicon Valley.

Saturday turned out to be a great day for a visit, even though it was the middle of December rather than the middle of summer. That's because we had beautiful weather on Saturday. The sky was clear after morning fog burned off. Rain hadn't been seen for days. Down in the valley the daytime high on forecast was an average-for-the-time-of-year 60°F (17°C) or so. I expected it would be cooler 2,000' up in the mountains. But there seemed to be a temperature inversion up in the mountains, as it was shirt sleeves weather (high 60s) when we arrived. We stowed our sweaters in the trunk and headed inside.

We opted to take our tasting standing at the bar inside the hunting-lodge style main hall. A few other guests were at the bar so it was mildly social without feeling crowded. The tasting menu included 4 wines, which immediately turned into 5, then 6, then maybe 7. I lost count. One thing that's true about many wine-tasting venues is that if you're good company and you schmooze with the staff without coming across as a moocher, they'll open up some extra bottles for you. I can schmooze when I need/want to, though I often feel self-conscious about doing it. Anthony's a natural at it. In our conversation he talked about all the bars in town where he "knows" the bartenders and gets free drinks. 🍻



After drinking our fill at the bar we headed outside to appreciate the view from the hilltop. I kind of wish we'd done this earlier in the afternoon, as toward the end of our visit the weather had turned cooler.

We didn't leave Byington empty-handed. No, far from it! Both of us generally liked most of the wines they poured for us. Our discuss as we worked through the list wasn't "if" we would buy bottles to take home but which ones. Anthony picked a few bottles of lighter flavors, a sweet chardonnay and a pinot noir, as his wife likes lighter flavors. (He figured bringing home bottles that she'd like would get him a pass to maybe do this again. 😅) I chose two bottles of a surprisingly well balanced chardonnay and a spendier Bordeaux-style blend. The latter was curious because I was all set to buy a bottle of a Barbera that tasted really nice. Then they poured that Bordeaux and it was lights-out for the Barbera. 🤣

More wine ahead: We visit J. Lohr in San Jose later in the afternoon.

Wine Tasting at J. Lohr

This past Saturday I went wine tasting with my friend Anthony at two nearby wineries. One, I already wrote about. That was Byington Winery, up in the mountains above San Jose. For our next stop we drove back down into Silicon Valley to visit J. Lohr Winery, in San Jose's Rose Garden neighborhood.

J. Lohr, like Byington for that matter, is a winery I've visited before. But my previous visit to their San Jose tasting room was 10 years ago! Things have changed a bit since then. Oh, the winery and tasting room are in the same place, but now they charge for tasting. (Free tastings are a thing of the past.) $25 for the cheap one, $50 for the reserve wines. Anthony and I both picked the cheaper flight as it looked more interesting. The reserve was all Cabs.

We sat down at a table— the tasting room being reconfigured for tables instead of standing at the bar is another thing they've changed in 10 years— and chatted amiably over a flight of 5 glasses of wine. The pours were more generous here than at Byington. That wasn't really a selling point, though, as I poured out the last bit of almost every wine instead of finishing the glasses.

"Oh, that's what these buckets are for!" Anthony exclaimed. Technically they're called spit buckets, because professional tasters spit out wine after tasting it so as not to get intoxicated, but I just poured out the excess from my glass.

Anthony wasn't impressed by the wines, either. "We visited these wineries in the wrong order," he quipped. J. Lohr's wines were soft and honestly kind of bland after the rich wines we both enjoyed up the hill at Byington. We finished our tastings, paid, and left without buying any bottles.