Gone with the Wine

The recap of my San Fran trip continues….

….in wine country! Matt and I got on the road nice and early on Friday and made it to the Russian River Valley around 11. Our first stop was a small, family owned winery called Arista.

Arista was definitely my favorite winery of the day because of the Japanese-inspired gardens and the spicy Zinfandel.

At KJ, Chef Matt led us through a three course food-wine pairing that included seven tastes of reserve wines and farm fresh food.

The second course was by far my favorite because all the tastes involved perfectly cooked meats and tasty reds. We tried a buckwheat crepe with smoked harm and local Carmody cheese, a sweet tea brined pork belly slider with picked cucumbers and Syrah hoisin sauce, and braised oxtail over North Carolina (!) grits.

I was pumped that the tasting included dessert wines because I really love them, but I rarely order them in restaurants. The Late Harvest Riesling was paired with an apricot + pecan tart with a meyer lemon sauce. Loved the Reising, but I would have enjoyed the tart more if it had been warm. This homemade caramel corn popcorn was paired with the Late Harvest Chardonnay. I thought popcorn was a bit of a boring choice…until the first crunch. It was covered in really sticky and thick caramel and was so good with the less-sugary chardonnay.

This was such a sweet ending to an amazing tasting. It looks like someone else has been doing a little tasting – Jack the cat is a bit overweight:)

Once back in the city, we met up with my college friend, Emily, and took a nap in her gorgeous condo before getting a second wind for tacos at the fabulous Tacolicious.