by Lonnie Bryant
TA S T E
Sunday April 14, 2013
(our 40th
Wedding Anniversary)
Donna and I are flying to San Francisco
to meet Bill and Jeanie Sharpless, friends
from Midlothian, VA to enjoy a fantastic
week in wine country. As many of you
already know, I’m the wine consultant
for Kroger here at Smith Mountain Lake,
and Donna conducts many of the in-
store tastings. We used our wine industry
connections to put together a visit to
Napa and Sonoma, consisting of VIP
tours and tastings at many well known
wineries.
We arrived in San Francisco, met
our friends, and began our drive to
Sonoma. Once you cross the Golden
Gate Bridge, an overlook provides an
excellent opportunity to take pictures of
San Francisco across the bay. Here’s a
little trivia about the Golden Gate Bridge:
It took just over 4 years to build, and
11 workers died during construction.
The bridge is not painted gold, because
the consulting architect, Irving Morrow,
selected International Orange. He
thought it blended well with the span’s
natural setting and offered enhanced
visibility (especially in fog). Golden Gate
actually refers to the Golden Gate Strait,
which is the entrance to San Francisco
Bay from the Pacific Ocean.
Monday
Our first winery visit in Sonoma was
Rodney Strong, where our host gave us a
tour of the vineyards and explained many
of the techniques used in grapevine
canopy management. The canopy is
made up of the shoots, leaves, and grape
clusters. The whole purpose of canopy
management is to train the vine on the
trellis, in order to maximize the grape
clusters’ exposure to sunlight and allow
for proper airflow. It also makes it easier
to pick the grapes and prune the vines.
The Rodney Strong story dates
back more than 50 years. A celebrated
American dancer named Rod Strong
came to Sonoma County, California to
pursue another passion: winemaking.
Rodney Strong Vineyards was the
13th winery in the newly established
Sonoma County wine industry. In 1989,
the Klein family bought the winery, and
together with winemaker Rick Sayre,
embarked upon a commitment to
artisan winemaking. Rodney Strong has
earned a great reputation for their highly
acclaimed Single Vineyard and Reserve
wines. Our host also gave us a tour of
the winery and a tasting directly from the
barrels with a wine thief.
In 2010, Rodney Strong became
officially certified by the California
Sustainable
Winegrower’s
Alliance.
A large portion of their electricity is
produced from the solar panels installed
on the roof of the barrel building, which
significantly reduces carbon dioxide
emissions.
Next, we visited Kendall Jackson
Winery, known for their Reserve
Chardonnay. Jess Jackson founded the
company after purchasing an 80 acre
pear and walnut orchard in Lakeport,
California in 1974. The first bottle of
wine bearing the Kendall Jackson label
was produced in 1982. Today, Kendall
Jackson Reserve Chardonnay is one
of the most popular Chardonnays in
America. Kendall Jackson now owns
over 15,000 acres of California coastal
vineyards. Sustainability has always been
important to the Jackson Family. They
like to use the international standard
definition, which is: “the planning and
activity that takes into account the long-
term maintenance and well-being of
the environment, social, and economic
demands of the world around us.”
While at Kendall Jackson, we
experienced fine wines paired with great
food (prepared by resident chef Andrei
Litvinenko at Kendall Jackson Estates)
during a five course tasting. The culinary
team at Kendall Jackson believes that
taste is everything, and they don’t mean
just wine.
Tuesday
We visited Clos du Bois, which means
“enclosure in the woods” in French. The
founder of Clos du Bois, Frank Woods,
traveled to France’s wine regions and
returned home to California to combine
the elegant French style of winemaking
with his vibrant California grapes. In 1974,
Clos du Bois began bottling Chardonnay
and Pinot Noir wines produced from
Russian River fruit. The fog which covers
this region each night allows for slow
ripening of the grapes, helping them
the
Discover Smith Mountain Lake
Fall 2013
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