This past weekend, we went up to the central coast to go wine tasting with our friends Louie and Tom. Those two are serious about their wines and before the tastings, they trained us on the rules of wine tasting:
Rule 1 Drink lots of water to keep yourself hydrated.
Rule 2 Eat. A lot. You need to balance out all that wine with enough food in your body.
Rule 3 Drink responsively. Pace yourself and throw out the rest of the wine if you don't particularly like it.
Rule 4 Don't be rude. If you didn't like the wine, say it in a gracious way (i.e. Don't say, "Phew! This tastes like Santa Monica water!" in front of the winemaker).
Rule 5 Don't be a barhog. A barhog refers to the person who stay up at the counter talking to the pourer oblivious to the line behind them waiting for a fill up.
Unlike the Napa Valley, some of the wineries in the Santa Ynez Valley have storefront tasting rooms instead of tasting rooms in the wineries themselves. Most of the tasting rooms can be found in the picturesque little town of Los Olivos.
Tom, Louie and I were privileged to have been able to go to the Andrew Murray Vineyard where they only open their vineyard to the public twice a year. The fee was $10 but well worth it for the 7 different wines they were tasting and a good appetizer and dessert spread. Since Mike joined us late Saturday night, we did the bulk of our tastings on Sunday checking out the Sunstone, Foley and Blackjack wineries.
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