Originally Posted By: mdrew

For anyone thinking they would like to do this, I would highly recommend that you pick one of the smaller wineries where you get to meet the owners, or at least the general manager. Ask them about the tour and if it’s a private tour or a scheduled tour with a group. The smaller wineries will take the time to walk you through the entire process and give you that personal experience you don’t get with a crowd. Some of the larger wineries offer tours, but it just isn’t the same. What you have is someone who has some knowledge of the process, but it’s highly unlikely that they’ve ever had their hands dirty. If you visit Arroyo and shake his hand, you’ll notice that his hands are blue from working with grapes the past thirty years.


I agree 100%.
The small wineries are much more fun to attend and talk to people. The larger wineries tend to have contracts or agreements with local wine tour agencies that drop-off 200 people at a time for a tour. most of the people that attend these tours in Niagara are tourists just there to try the ice wines. I had this conversation with two of the pourers at two of the major vineyards about this very subject, and I had this talk with a wine pourer at two of the smaller vineyards as well. they would get a bus load of people from overseas, Germans, Asians, and all they want to try are the Canadian ice wines. others are there to see the massive winery that they've been drinking wines from all these years, for example Jackson and Triggs. most of them have never heard of any of the smaller wineries because they don't sell wines outside of the province or outside of their local region. of course that is understandable.
As you talk about all the smaller local wineries around Napa, I wouldn't know about them either before I went there. I may as well just go and take a wine tour at Fetzer or at Mondavi because that's all I'm familiar with as it is mostly what we see here in our area for sale.
only those who read more or participate in wine clubs or wine forms, for example even reading this thread, may find out more about what is in the area and try harder to find those particular brand names.

 Quote:

Each time I visit a winery I learn more and become more appreciative of the stuff that’s in the bottle. At one of the wineries we visited, they had two barrels of the same grape, same harvest, same times in fermentation…but they tasted vastly different. The only difference between the two was that one was from a row of vines with a southern exposure and the other was from vines with a northern exposure. They both have the same amount of sun, but one gets morning sun and other gets afternoon sun. I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t have tasted it. Another thing I learned is that grapes from hillside vines have a unique taste, smell and body than valley floor vines. Hillside vine wines tend to be a bit more robust with a heavier body and more nose to them. The reason being; is that the grapes tend to be smaller with thicker skins, but their growing time is the same as valley wines. This gives the pulp more flavor. It’s also why the cost of these bottles is more expensive; they don’t produce as much wine.

ah so that's why those bottles cost under $125
thin skins
very sensitive
need very expensive skin lotion moisturizers



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