Berringer Wine Tasting

So, we just left Berringer. It has an absolutely beautiful property. I thought a lot of these places had just been built in the last 30 years to try to draw tourists in, but I realized that the Berringer Winery is over 100 years old. In fact, it’s one of the only wineries in America that stayed open and produced some wine all throughout Prohibition. They have a wonderful picture of this massive crowd waiting for a tour at the winery the day they left Prohibition. The Berringer Winery has tunnels that go back hundreds of feet into the mountain keeping at a constant 15 degrees when making the wine. It was amazing how many different movies have been filmed at the Berringer Wineries, and also in the tunnels with people, such as Keanu Reeves to Clark Gable, whose photos are on their wall.

We tasted a bunch of wine and being a non-wine drinker, I’d finally started to pick up some of the subtle taste differences. One of them really did taste like it had been toasted, and I can taste the vanilla in it. In other ones, I’m starting to actually pick up the fact that you can taste things like cloves and other spices, or a lemony taste in the wine. So, there really is a difference, and they don’t all just taste the same. Now, the funny thing is that I’m a non-drinker, so it’s taking nothing more than a teeny sip, but on the last one, the one that actually tasted pretty good, I took a big gulp and swished it around in my mouth. I came to the realization that if you do take a big gulp and swished it around in your mouth, you get a much better taste than if you just taste the sip. The biggest trouble we had was that my wife is a bad swirler. We’ve been trying and trying, and she’s been practicing and practicing, but unfortunately, she cannot perfect the swirl. I don’t know if it’s going to be possible to teach it to her or not, but tonight at dinner, we’ll be practicing with the water glass.