wine: wente 2009 Sandstone Merlot

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged about any new wines lately.  Well, the reason for that is we've been drinking our way through 2 cases of our favorite 07 St. Francis Cab.  But after a while, you need something different.  So Mike and I went to Target and bought a few under $11 bottles of wine to mix into our assortment.  We gave ourselves the "under $11" challenge because, well, the under $7 wines kinda make us sick after enjoying much better, more expensive wines.  The $7-$11 range offers a bit more quality and is still a good price point for a weeknight wine (in our book). Our other problem (hardly a problem) is that we've been buying 1-2 bottles of good wine ($30 - $50) whenever we are at a winery. So we have a good stash of expensive wine that needs a specific reason to be drank, and not just because The Bachelorette is on.  (Which if you ask me is enough of a reason for a semi-good bottle of wine, I love that show, but it's just a bit hard to justify opening a $40 bottle of wine just to comment on how narcissistic pro-trainer Ryan is on this season.)

So anyway, back to the Wente Merlot.  We got this at Target for $10.99.  Totally worth money. This is a perfect summer bottle of wine. Light, plum in smell and taste, with a hint of raspberries and spices.  Sweet and light but not over the top in sweetness, because we're not fans of super sweet wines, there still needs to be some spice or pepper flavor to fill it out.  This one was a good one where the plum was balanced out with the spices. 

We were actually quite impressed - both for the value and the fact that we still always face that stigma of Sideways' attitude toward Merlot. We've found that Merlots can either be good or bad.  (Wow, that's a deep statement, AnnE.)  But you know what I mean, they either impress us because we have lower expectations for a Merlot or they fulfill the stereotype of - Eh, I'm not so sure I want to finish my glass of wine much less the bottle.

winery: wente

Wente is like the zoo of all zoos on a nice weekend day.  But there is something about it that makes me love it even more each time I am there.  Maybe it's the golf course, maybe it's sipping Arnold Palmers on the veranda on a hot sunny afternoon overlooking the course, maybe it's the fact that it has a winery. Does not matter. I love it all. 

You know how I said last week that sometimes when you get sub-par service at a winery, you leave feeling a bit disappointed?  Right.  Something about Wente's craziness makes it OK that they only stop by once in a blue moon, because when they did check in with us, they acknowledged their lack of attention to us and had us try a few extra wines that weren't part of our tasting.  Maybe that helps.  Yes, yes I think it does.

wente

Tucked back in the hills of the East Bay, Wente Vineyards is a wonderful place to golf, take in views of Mt. Diablo and enjoy a different wine region of Northern California. Wente is located in the the Livermore area, which boasts some great wines, and very relaxed attitudes.  Also, it's one of our favorite places to golf.  I say, any golf course that you can see grapes on nearly every hole is a winner in my book, even if I do score an 8 on a par 4. It's OK, because it sure is pretty.

wente

Mike and I have taken up a habit.  It's called:

Improve thy golf game.

And if you say this in a very deep, loud voice, it sounds very serious like it is something we must do.  Luckily the rain has stopped so we can continue on our quest to

improve thy golf game. (In my head that voice sounds just like the announcer on the old Nickelodeon show, Legends of the Hidden Temple...) love that show.

I digress.

Ok, now let me get back to the topic at hand, which coincidentally has nothing to do with the ever popular 90s game show on Nickelodeon. 

Recently we took an afternoon drive to a few different golf courses that we like, not to play golf, but rather to pick up a golf ball with the course's logo on it for Mike's golf ball collection (you see, he received a display cabinet for golf balls for Christmas, but an empty display cabinet looks plain old silly in the office, so we need to fill it!) Speaking of silly, we actually haven't hung the golf ball cabinet on the wall yet.  In due time my friends. 

You may be thinking to yourself...how does getting a logo'd ball help improve thy golf game?  Well, it doesn't. Pardon me, I keep getting off track.  Anywho, we went to Wente golf course to pick up a golf ball.  Mike has golfed here, but I have not...yet.  I will soon enough, because who doesn't want to golf among grape vines?  Hello! I do! and remember today's slogan:

Improve thy golf game.

 I'm pretty sure Barkley is saying in this picture - I really like it here... but PLEASE give me a haircut!

Do not fret, she has since received a haircut and looks to be about half this size.

How cool would it be to have an event under these lights overlooking the vines? Sign me up!

Nothing says "yippee it's spring!" like some daffodils growing curbside.

Many people think Napa or Sonoma when they think about wine country, but oddly enough there's quite a few wineries located in Livermore Valley as well.  The most recognizable (for me, at least) is Wente.  The Livermore Valley are what I imagine Sonoma used to be - very relaxed, very country and very wine related without all the hoopla that surrounds the estates. (Don't get me wrong, I like the hoopla, and Wente does give you some hoopla, just not vast amounts of the hoopla in this region.)  Case in point: we drove past one winery that looked like they just may have decorated their entire patio from Wall Drug.  You may be wondering, where in the heck is Wall Drug?   

[*]

Don't ask...there's plenty of bumper stickers in South Dakota that have beat you to it.  Anyway, the Livermore Valley wineries are still quite beautiful in their own right, just different than the experience you would have in Napa or Sonoma. 

Another fun thing about Wente is that they have a huge concert series in the summer.  Check out their website below for all sorts of beautiful pictures and fun facts of their wine...and come April 15, their 2011 concert lineup.

for more pretty pictures of Wente, go here

in case you have an aching for Wall Drug, go here.