Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

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.

Oops, I did it again. I went wine shopping again. Yes, I just went wine shopping yesterday— and bought 6 bottles of wine. That wasn't bad as it brought my collection to just 51 bottles, a completely reasonable number compared to what I owned in years past.  But today I went wine shopping again— and bought another 6 bottles. 😅



The impetus for going shopping again and buying wine again was that I still had my "Buy 6, get 20% off" coupon. It was supposed to be a single use coupon, but the Total Wine store I shopped at yesterday screwed it up. They didn't apply the coupon correctly. And since they gave me a runaround when I tried to use the coupon— and another runarounds when I politely asked them to correct their mistake— I decided, screw 'em I'll use it again. Yup, it's revenge shopping! 🤣

How did I pick 6 more wines today when I picked 6 just yesterday? I mean, it's not really exciting to think, "Oh, look, it's my 7th through 12th favorite wines!" Nor is it fulfilling to think, "Oh, boy, another copy of favorites #1-6!" I made today's shopping different by taking a different approach to my selections.

Yesterday I bought 6 wines that a) were brands I enjoyed before and wanted to add back to my collection or b) filled gaps in my collection where a variety, like zinfandel, was running low.

Today I took the approach of picking wines from my list of "Hmm, I'd like to try that sometime." I think of it as having a wine tasting at home. And some of those wines, like the two Pinot Noirs on the left have been on that list for several years! I guess I was always waiting for them to go on sale or something. And, well, today's revenge sale was the buying signal I needed.

I've been trying to get a wine tasting trip going for a while. Not a big trip, just a local trip, as there are more than a dozen wineries in the foothills and up the near side of the Santa Cruz mountains near where I live. (There are also multiple dozen wineries 45-60 minutes in the other direction, in the Livermore Valley, but I toured that region extensively several times years ago. I've spent way less time visiting wineries in the mountains I can literally see from my house.) And when I say I've been trying to get this trip going for a while I mean both "for a couple of months" and "for several years". 😰

The "for a couple of months" part is because I've been waiting for the right opportunity: a weekend with nice weather when we didn't have conflicting plans and when, ideally, I could find a friend to do tastings with.

Yesterday was finally the day! A buddy and I visited a few wineries in the mountains and had a great time, enjoying the wine, the camaraderie, and the weather. Our first stop, after grabbing a quick lunch together in town, was David Bruce Winery in Los Gatos, in mountains above San Jose.



Why wait for nice weather? I mean, why not? 😂 But seriously, wineries are definitely open in shitty weather, too. And I've had some memorable experiences doing wine tasting when it's gloomy and cold outside but warm and intimate inside an old time-y building with a fire going in the fireplace and a glass of good red wine in my hand.

My idea for this trip was to go on a warm, clear afternoon so we could drop the top on the convertible and enjoy the drive through the mountains as well as the wine. And that's exactly the weather we had on tap for this weekend. ...The last few weekends, too, but I either had conflicting plans for those or didn't make plans in time.

Speaking of making plans in time, it was only Friday night I called a couple of friends to see about going wine tasting on Saturday. Damn procrastination. One already had drinking plans for Friday night and didn't think he'd be able to get up in time Saturday. The other, Anthony, also had drinking plans Friday night— in fact, he choked on a shot of liquor when he answered the phone and said "Hello" 🤣— but he's a lot younger so he figured he'd snap back just fine by Saturday morning. 💪



David Bruce is a beautiful winery. As you can see in the first photo above it's not much to look at from the parking lot. It looks kind of like a stone behemoth half-buried in the hillside. But that's also part of its beauty. The designers created natural cooling for the winemaking process by using heavy natural materials and locating it half underground. And all the greenery around it helps it blend into the natural landscape of the hills. The second pic above I took as we walked along the terrace to the tasting room.

Reservations Required (Also: We're Married Now)

I'd had to call ahead for a reservation for wine tasting. That's one thing that's different about wine tasting now vs. years ago.... It used to be you only needed an appointment for a private, high-end tasting or a tour— and even those you could even sign up for on the day of, very often. Now wineries ask for reservations even for basic tastings. So I made reservations with 3 wineries for Saturday.

David Bruce I had to call on the phone at 11am (when they opened) because their online ressy system wouldn't accept day-of reservations. The coordinator I spoke to hemmed and hawed as she dug up the appointments book. She sure made it seemed like they were squeezing us in. Yet when we arrived at 1pm the winery the parking lot was less than 20% full. There were only three small groups in the tasting area, and two of the couples were leaving.



As a coordinator sat us on the terrace overlooking the hillside with glasses of rosé to start, we both chuckled as the reservation card set out for us. "We're married now!" Anthony texted to both of our spouses. 🤣

Taste 'em All, Buy a Few Bottles Each

The winery offered two choices for tasting. We figured since we're married now we could each order a different flight and then share it with one another. I even joked that we could intertwine arms as we did so. Spoiler: we didn't. 🤣

We generally liked all the wines poured at David Bruce. The reisling was light and gently fruity. It was on the dry side of the reisling variety but with natural sweetness coming from the subtle fruit flavors. That was nice because it didn't have the syrupy mouth feel that comes along with sweeter reislings due to their residual sugar content. Anthony bought a bottle of that because he liked it and thought his wife would really like it, too. I considered it but opted to spend my chips on the pinot noir.

Speaking of pinot noir, there were four pinot noir examples on the tasting menu. One of the flights was just 4 pinots. Actually five, if you count the freebie rosé of pinot noir they started us with. (The rosé is shown in the pic above.) I generally liked all of them. For me the top two were the Russian River pinot (grapes grown in the Russian River appellation of Sonoma County) and the estate pinot (possibly growing on the hillside in the photos here). The Russian River example had a nicely spicy characteristic that's rare. But the estate pinot is the one I bought, two bottles even, because it balanced a warm, spicy dimension with delicious fruit flavor.

We finished up with a petite sirah. To me it wasn't very special; likely because I've had a lot of petite sirah before when I made regular wine tasting trips to Livermore Valley. I'm not saying it's bad, just that I'm a little jaded on the variety. Anthony was really into it and bought a bottle to take home.

As we stood to leave it was time to pay the piper. Many wineries advertise their bottle prices right on the tasting card, so you know what you're drinking. David Bruce didn't, which seemed a little suspicious. I was prepared for them to hit us with, like $55+ prices per bottle. I remember when I visited David Bruce 10 years ago the prices were all $35+, which was a lot back then. With inflation today those prices would be at least $55. So I was surprised that most of the bottles were priced at $39. That makes David Bruce... well, not a bargain, but definitely a solid quality-price ratio.

Oh, except the wine I liked best turned out to be the most expensive on the list. The estate pinot was $65. It's like they knew which was best, too. 😅 But by that point I'd already decided on it and didn't want to settle for second best. Plus, I figured with them comping the $30 tasting fee for buying two bottles it worked out to effectively $50 per bottle. I've groused before about $50 bottles of pinot noir.... Well, that was before the significant inflation of the past several years. And this one genuinely seemed worth it.

Keep reading: we visit Thomas Fogarty Winery next!

Three weeks after I got my first Covid-19 vaccine shot— which entailed a road trip of 108 miles each way— I'm heading out to get my second shot tomorrow morning. And this one only requires driving 87 miles each way! 😂

It's closer because this time I'm only driving to Napa. "Only"!



Yes, Napa is well known as wine country. Napa Valley is the most prestigious wine-growing region in the US and one of the premier locations in the world. While "Napa Valley" is regional designation used for classifying where wine grapes are grown, Napa is also an actual city (pop. 80,000-ish) in that region and is the county seat of Napa County.

That fun little bit of travelog aside, I'm not actually going to Napa, Napa Valley, or Napa County for wines. I'm going for my second vaccine shot. Could I combine the trip with wine tasting? Sure; but it's just not fun right now. Wineries have changed their tasting programs for the practical demands of the no-really-it's-not-over-yet Coronavirus pandemic. It's not fun for Hawk, who's accompanying me and can't drink, and it's not worth it.

So, are we just going to drive 174 miles round trip for my shot and call it a day? Heck, no! There's great weather on tap— sunny and 77° in the forecast— and beautiful countryside to enjoy it in. We plan to go for a short hike to a waterfall after I get my shot.

Then, if time permits and I'm feeling well, maaaybe we'll stop at a winery or two. 😇😅🍷

Update: See how the day turned out! Keep reading in next blog.