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Kathleen and I took a little 500 mile drive last weekend to attend the Annual James Gang Bash at Tobin James Friday night ... our son, Grant, drove down from San Francisco, Kathleen's cousin, his wife, and a couple friends drove up from Long Beach, and Kathleen's brother and his wife drove over from Kingsburg ... the party was a BLAST, the food was delicious, the bands played great music, and Tobin's 2004 juice actually surpasses his great 2003's ... Saturday we caravaned to just less than a dozen different wineries in the area ... winery after winery we came away shaking our heads - whatever variety of 2004 juice we tasted ROCKED !
Some interesting tidbits (maybe) -
Caparone no longer sells their production to Trader Joe's - not a DROP ! They've joined the Paso wine growing group, have started a wine club, and had food and a small jazz band playing for us tasters ... AMAZING 180 degree change for those folks !
Rabbit Ridge's new facility was gorgeous ... and their 2004 Zin topped all our lists for a mid-priced zin ...
Bianchi has a 3 bedroom questhouse next to their tasting room ... if you're a wine club member and for every $250 you spend, you and your guests accumulate one free night's stay in the guesthouse ... and what a beautiful place to have a picnic ...
Larry Roberts at Penman Springs just CAN'T make a bad bottle of grog !
Stacked Stone is hard to find but wonderful juice fairly priced ...
A little 500 mile drive back home Sunday with WAY too many cases of good REASONABLY priced grog ... Gawd it's gonna be sad when that area turns into another Napa/Sonoma !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clink !
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