Have you ever wondered why chickens cross roads? And which came first: the chicken joke, or the egg joke? OK, forget that, that’s not why I called you here today. Today, I wanted to demonstrate how stupid I am. To wit:
Last week, Sonoma County’s Wine Road came to Sacramento, along with a few wineries, and it was hot, and do you know Sonoma is so nice it didn’t say anything? It stood there, dripping, and not once did they complain or take off their suit jackets because Jesus-it’s-hot-and-haven’t-you-ever-heard-of-air-conditioning?
Anyway, have you ever heard of Wine Road? Me neither, but then until last week, I’d never heard of SMH either, so what do I know?
Wine Road is like a concierge on a mixture of steroids and a 6-pack of Red Bull. If my math is correct, Sonoma County has approximately 12,000 grapetillion wineries, so if you’re like me and go fetal when overloaded with information, go to the Wine Road website before you trek into Sonoma County, and let them create a custom map and itinerary automatically (including hotels!) based on a few questions.
So, Wine Road came out to Enotria restaurant wine bar here in Sacramento and invited a handful of people to taste some wine and food pairings. And by some, I mean many, many pairs.
They set us up like speed dating on the patio where we were introduced to three different wineries from Sonoma County (Jordan Vineyard & Winery, Pedroncelli Winery, and Taft Street Winery).
We sat down with each winery for 20 minutes, tasted and learned about their wine, each glass paired with little bites from Chef Pajo Bruich like mango spheres or duck somethings or cheese whatchamacallits (I am SO getting the Foodie award this year).
A word about mango spheres. Have you ever heard of these things? They look like egg yolks just sitting there, bobbling on the spoon and then when you bite into them, they sort of explode or pop with mango flavor. How weird is that? I mean, how do they do that?
Anyway, each of these paired food thingies arrived on these mini-plate spoon dealy-bobbers that I’d never seen before, so I sat there and waited for someone to go first to see if it really was like a spoon where you simply bring it to your mouth and eat it all at once.
As often as I’ve attended different wine-themed events, I still don’t know the smart questions to ask. Luckily, my speed tasting buddy, Darryl (Darrel? Dare-L? AGH! How do you spell your name, man?), of Cowtown Eats, kept the questions going as I sat there trying not to spill food and wine on myself.
Anyway, after that segment, they brought us into their private dining room and began serving more food and more wine. On plates! Now, plates I know. I know how to do plates. I grew up with plates. I used to eat off of them as a child, so my mama raised me right, eating off plates. Yo.
We go around the room introducing ourselves and everybody is a food blogger or a food journalist or a wine enthusiast or magazine editor and then when it comes to me all I can say is, “Uh, I have this humor blog? Called Nanny Goats in Panties?” *cue screeching car sound*
Yeah.
One thing I’ve learned, however, is that even if one does not have the terminology or tongue of a sommelier, one can still appreciate good food and wine. And since 98% of us are not New York Times-worthy, high-falootin’ culinary and wine-linary critics, I can tell you guys how rockin’ awesome the feed bag and hooch was, right?
I will say that the gorgeous presentation, delicious food, and the pomp and circumstance of the Enotria staff made for a festive yet sophisticated atmosphere.
The pairings were topped off with an insane chocolate creation paired with a scrumptious port (can port be scrumptious?) from Pedroncelli (which, by the way, has been in Dry Creek Valley since before Prohibition).
Anyway, I’m thinking of starting a wine and food blog for morons so if you can think of any names for it, send them my way.
Also? Here’s a list of links to the wineries again if you want to check them out. If anything, you might want to check out Jordan Winery’s parody music video of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, called appropriately, “Blurred Vines”
- Jordan Winery in Healdsburg, CA.
- Pedroncelli Winery in Geyserville, CA.
- Taft Street Winery in Sabastopol, CA.
direct link to Blurred Vines video
(All watermarked photos courtesy of fellow Sacramento blogger Dawn Balzarano.)
“Anyway, after that segment, they brought us into their private dining room and began serving more food and more wine. On plates! Now, plates I know. I know how to do plates. I grew up with plates. I used to eat off of them as a child, so my mama raised me right, eating off plates. Yo.”
AHhaHAhHAhAH! OMG! I laughed SO HARD reading that paragraph!
Lol that Blurred Lines vid is hilarious.
Great article Margaret!
Thank you, Gvanto.
And yeah, that video is hilarious… and so well done, too!
Dang! You’ve totally hit the big time, Margaret! That’s an A-list shindig if I ever saw one. (Which I haven’t.)
Ha! It was very well done, Boom Boom.
Great post! I hope to have my own up next week. Thanks for featuring my photos. 🙂 As for the food/wine/morons blog… Unfortunately I’m not creative enough to come up with a clever name suggestion. But I am looking forward to seeing that blog! 😉
Dawn – I love love LOVE your photos! Thank you so much for allowing me to include them here!
That looks like delicious fun, Margaret! Gorgeous presentation too.
The mapping of Sonoma is a cool idea and I’ll make a note of that for the next time (if/when) I can drag my husband on a vacation.
We recently the the documentary Somm about 4 guys studying to be Master Sommeliers. It was fascinating and full-o-wine as you can imagine.
Let me know when you’re coming to LA!!! Yeah. We’ll make a plan.
xo jj
I’ve not seen Somm and now I’ll have to see if it’s on Netflix and add it! And yeah, I hope to see you very soon!
I think you should do a food and wine blog. I would actually read yours. And you can make up all you want about it. In fact, you can coin phrases about food and wine and everyone would start using those phrases. What I love about wineries is that when Alex tells the person he wants to try the Peanut Noor, nobody giggles. I mean, Dude lays down $500.00 on wine, he can call it anything he wants to.
That’s awesome. Also? Tell me he’s yanking their chain. I mean do you both just stand there with a straight face to see what they’ll do?
You know Alex. He isn’t joking. I may roll my eyes, but the people really just serve him his peanut noor. Alex is a big spender when it comes to wine. Nobody corrects him or snickers either. And he’s a little bit ghetto, you know.
If I were to combined the delights of heaven and the heat of hell, it sounds like I might end up with something like the above. Gorgeous photos!
I thought the photos were gorgeous too, which is why I stole them. Or borrowed them. Or something. 🙂
Yes port can be scrumptious – so scrumptious that one can keep refilling one’s glass until one is kicked in the shins under the table while the kicker hisses in one’s ear that the port that one is guzzling is 100 year old (or something like that) vintage port from the host’s grandfather’s wine cellar – yadda yadda yadda. Yup scrumptious…
Hee hee!! I’m gonna go out on a limb here, Grace, and accuse you of speaking from experience. 🙂
I think you should call your new wine and food blogs for morons, MargaretsWineAndFoodBlogForMorons.com. It’s catchy, memorable, got a good beat and I can dance to it.
Now how is it those people didn’t recognize the star of LTYM?
OK, that’s one vote for MargaretsWineAndFoodBlogForMorons.com.
And, YEAH, can you believe not one person asked for my autograph???
I thought you said nothing good ever happened in Sacramento. I thought you said that it was a boring state capitol. It seems to me that it is a capital capitol. You are always having fun.
Again, though I do not note apples.
Apples are very important when serving a meal to mixed guests.
But look what had to happen for Sacramento to be fun. A nother whole county had to come over! 😉