Sonoma Field Trip Report

Corralling 9 people to show up on time, move to the next place was too easy. This group was on time, moved to the next venue in step and had a great time! The first stop was at noon on November 1, Sbragia Family Vineyards and Winery. Ed Sbragia was the winemaker at the award winning Beringer Winery in Napa Valley. In 2003 he left Beringer to open his own winery in Sonoma. If you haven’t been there, make it a destination on your next trip. It is a beautiful winery and staffed by professional and friendly people.

Our group was greeted by a welcoming sign…always good to know we were expected! Our lecture was on “Pairing Food and Wine” (well done by Kirby, BTW). Bill and I have been to multiple sensory wine tastings but this was very unique. It was about how to make food bring out the best of different wines. We were able to see for ourselves how, for example, a slice of apple changes the taste of a Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon but if we sprinkle of bit of salt onto the apple slice, the wines tasted totally different.

The brightness of the Sauvignon Blanc shone just with the addition of the salt. On the other hand, we saw what lemons do to wine…as you can imagine, not good things. The wines became dull and listless. But adding a squeeze of lemon to the apple and salt, changed the wines again and brought out the flavors of the reds. After our lecture and tasting, we had lunch at the winery, dining on their covered deck, enjoying the great food, the beautiful weather and views of the colorful fall vineyards.

Tracy Bidia, their Hospitality Manager, started us off with a great plate of assorted appetizers and then prepared an absolutely delicious pasta with short ribs, served with Arugula Salad with Parmigiana and freshly baked La Brea breads.

We finished our lunch with assorted cookies and biscotti. We purchased a bottle of their delicious fruity, complex and well-balanced Zinfandel to enjoy with the lunch.

We checked into our hotels around 3:30, rested a bit and then seven of us piled into Sandy & Jerry’s van to head over to Quivira Vineyards and Winery, in the Dry Creek area. This was a tour of their Biodynamic Gardens, led by Jim, the master gardener & foreman.

Working the ground as nature intended without chemicals or materials foreign to this microclimate is a lot of work and requires attention. All the vegetables and herbs were healthy and fruitful. Jim said that when plants are healthy and strong, they can resist disease and bugs. He also mentioned that feral bees are withstanding the mite disease that is devastating the bee population raised in man-made hives. His garden has a feral bee colony that lives in an oak tree nearby.

Our dinner was in Quivera’s wine cellar, flanked on both sides by huge oak wine barrels as you can see from this photo. It turned out to be a lovely evening, weather-wise. The forecast had predicted rain on Thursday but when it finally arrived, we had sun and some beautiful fluffy clouds all day!

Because of the huge harvest, every spare space is being used for storing wine, grapes, fermenting tanks, etc. We were very lucky to be working with Jana Churich who coordinated our visit and Tim Vallery (Pelaton Catering) who catered our dinner. We had a 4-course dinner that, you will see from the photos, were not only delicious but beautifully presented. Tim used the vegetables and herbs from the biodynamic garden as much as he could. He also graciously came out at the beginning of each course to describe what we eating and to answer any questions we had about his preparation or choices.

We started with an absolutely lovely Yukon Gold Vichyssoise with Chive essence. It was served with fresh baked bread from the Costeaux Bakery and the winery poured a 2011 Viognier-Sauvignon Blanc that I really liked to complement the soup. As you see from this photo, Tim’s dishes not only taste great but are presented in an artistic manner.

Our next course was a Soda Rock Farms & Quivira Biodynamic Garden Heirloom Tomato Salad with roasted corn, marinated fresh mozzarella, basil vinaigrette and shaved almond. It look too pretty to eat but that didn’t stop a single person in our group from cleaning their plates! The Quivira 2009 Grenache, while a bright and light wine that I enjoyed, did not go as well as the Viognier-Sauvignon. Since we had a separate glass for each wine, I kept some of each wine so I could test what we had learned from our Sbragia lecture.

We then moved on to Pork Sugo Campanelle, served with Carmody Cheese and Basil essence. The basil for this dish as well as the Tomato Heirloom Salad came from Quivira’s biodynamic garden. The clear flavors of food grown in a natural soil and cared for with great attention and care is amazing. Campanelle is a pasta shape that Tim likes because it really grabs the sauce. The shredded pork in this dish was rich and flavorful. This dish was served with Quivira’s 2010 Flight Zinfandel and was a perfect match. The Zin was a full and well-balanced wine that was my favorite of the evening.

Our last savory course was a Spice Seared Sous-Vide Angus Sirloin with a Potato Fondant, Glazed rainbow carrot pearls, Brown clam-shell mushroom demi glace and red wine essence. Tim came out at the beginning of each course to describe how he prepared each dish. The sirloins were spiced and seared before being encased in the vacuum sealed bag for the sous-vide. This allowed for the flavors to come out and then return into the meat while still keeping the meat rare because he kept the water at 120º. The carrots were tiny balls/pearls created with a tiny scoop. The Quivira 2010 Goat Trek Blend was a good choice to go with the steak. For me, the wine will taste better after it gets some age on it but it shows great promise!

Dessert is not Tim’s forté (so says he) but this Tcho Chocolate Bread Pudding with macerated cranberry chutney and brown butter streusel, glowing in a puddle of farm egg crème anglaise did not disappoint. It was what a dessert should be (why else consume so many calories!), rich and decadent. He soaks the Costeaux Bakery bread in the Tcho chocolate for an hour to make sure each piece is saturated. By now, you know about my personal quest to find a wine that goes with chocolate and while the Quivira 2010 Late Harvest Zinfandel was delicious on it’s own, I am still on the search.

What a fabulous dinner! Thank you Tim and Jana. We left Quivera very contented and headed back to our hotel with a half case of Quivira wine to be used for future Cookbook Club dinners.

Friday morning was a poor breakfast at the hotel and then onto the David Coffaro Winery. As you can see from this photo of David’s tasting room, this is not a fancy winery. David is known for his blended wines. He grows very small acreage of different varieties so his production is also small for each. Many of his wines never reach is own tasting room because they are purchased by his wine club members or people who buy his futures.

We were treated to a barrel tasting of his 2011 harvest that is almost ready for bottling. The barrels we tasted will be ready to bottle in February or so (thanks, David!). We also tasted his bottled 2010’s. We tasted some very unusual varieties like Sauzao, Aglianico, Lagrein, Tannat, Alvarelhao, or Carignan. He blends most of them into some very wonderful wines and makes a few of them as a single variety wine. We were very impressed with his blended wines and enjoyed Catalina’s barrel tasting tour.

Dave was busy with his harvest and couldn’t join us but we watched his staff punch down the cap of grapes as the fruit flies rose in a flying carpet of bugs and enjoyed the winery’s aromas of fermenting grapes.

Bill and I headed home after our Coffaro tasting since we had another wine tasting event to attend that afternoon. …such gluttony! I hope the rest of the group was able to enjoy the lovely weather, other wineries and eateries in the area.

And, NO, I have no future plans to become a tour guide!

NEXT: Mark your calendars! Sunday, December 16th for our annual Holiday Buffet! Details to follow via email.