Congratulations! I've got a lot of respect for your decision GC. Your wife must be pretty awesome to support this. All the best.
My wife and I are still dabbling with wine. Took a trip up to Healdsburg north of the Bay Area. Had some great wine, but we especially liked Seghesio's Pinots and their Cabernets. Very buttery mouth feel (what I later learned is lactic acid
). Very good wine. If you haven't already, you should try some of Seghesio's reds. Our favorite of everything we tried up there. Only around $30, give or take. Tried J Winery (aparently run by the daughter of someone important somehow). Shit sucked and the tasting room was some austere stone and water garbage best enjoyed by the wanky Sausalito/SF biz analyst crowd. Oh, and we had some whites at Medlock Ames. Really good. They're into the sustainability thing. Vineyard is tucked into some hills. Very serene, bucolic place.
Also, we went to our local wine shop recently and got a wine by some guy named Sean Thackrey,
Pleiades. This is the blurb they sent out in a newsletter:
I've loved Sean Thackrey's Pleiades blend for many years, and was able to get wee bits for sale every year. We'd hide the wine in the back, and hand sell it to folks who'd bought it from us in the past. Every year, we ask for more, and every year we're told "sorry, there's just not enough to go around." We're nothing if not tenacious and persistent, so this year, I was finally able to wheedle enough for our club.
Pleiades is perhaps the ultimate cult wine - a kitchen sink blend of as many as twelve varietals, concocted in Bolinas by winemaker cum alchemist Sean Thackrey.
Thackrey is a bit of a crazy wizard. He apparently reads something like a dozen languages, including medieval dialects from Europe, from which he culls his unorthodox wizard wine making techniques. This bottling is his easiest to find and least expensive wine - but rest assured it is unlike any other wine out there.
The nose is out of this world unique, with intense eucalyptus (Thackrey ages the wine in open vats under the stars in his eucalyptus grove), spice, cherry fruits and berries. A real mine field of aromas. The palate is woody, eucalyptus again, but also blackberries, strawberries, chocolate, minerals, metal, and more. Incredibly layered and complex, all I can say is: singularity to the utmost. This wine has serious personality, somewhat like a masquerade of flavors and layers of complexity with a textural suppleness that entrances. Chameleon like wine. A blend of around 13 different grapes.
I don't remember it. I was kind of already a little buzzed when we opened it. Wouldn't of mattered 'cause my palate is, like or don't like. Which is convenient as I couldn't afford the really good stuff anyway.
Also, congrats to Wilco.
