My Wine Habbit (By Mike Reisbord)

It all started out innocently enough. Our friends Dave and Katie invited us to a Passport wine weekend in Dry Creek Valley along with a party bus full of their friends. As a group we went from winery to winery, tasting and enjoying. I had always had an interest in boozing on grape juice, and visiting a few wineries was the beginning of Michelle and my education. Now I try to occasionally plan family vacations my wife and kids would enjoy, but that also include a wine angle. For example, one family trip included an RV and camping in Napa. Another trip highlighted the Oregon State Fair with a detour into the Willamette Valley for some Pinot Noir tasting and winery tours.

Visiting a winery and the vineyards increases my enjoyment of wine. Having walked in the vineyard where the grapes grow, and seeing the winery where the magic of fermentation plays out somehow connects me to a wine. When I open a bottle I get to drink the expression of that land. Kind of weird, I know, but I'm drinking right now, so work with me.

We have been lucky enough to try many fine wines, but now-a-days my mission has become finding well made wines that I like to drink, especially California and Oregon wines, at reasonable prices. We most often drink variatals like zinfandel, pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon. When drinking wines from abroad, I have enjoyed big Italian wines like Borolo, barbaresco and brunello de montalchino. And on a hot summer afternoon I have been known to open a chardonnay, sauvignon blanc or a fume blanc. That's the beauty of wine. The varieties, the flavors, the buzz.

Did you know that there are a number of wines that can cost $1000.00 or more per bottle? Its true, and some wines can cost thousands per bottle. Famous French wines like Petrus or Domaine Romane Conte or cult California wines like Screaming Eagle are collected by serious vinofiles, and drunk by wealthy wine lovers. I have never even tasted such expensive wine. To be honest, if I tried one of these wines blind (meaning I didn't see the label on the bottle before drinking) I probably wouldn't even know I was drinking top dollar juice.

My palate is not nearly as refined as some more experienced wine drinkers taste buds. I have seen people pick out flavors within the wine that I could never distinguish among the more noticeable flavors of berries and oak. Yet, with my limited experience and moderate palate, I have managed to find tremendous enjoyment drinking this ancient alcoholic beverage.

While I spend much of this web page gushing about how fun it is to go wine tasting, my reality is that I buy most of my wine at retail wine stores. Like a kid in a candy store I walk up and down the isles, looking at labels and trying to figure which bottles will yield the best flavor per buck spent. It is imposable to tell a good wine from a bad one by looking at labels alone, so I rely on knowledgeable salespeople for recommendations. Even recommended wines can be hit or miss, because wines are such a matter of personal preference. So when I find a wine that I like for a modest price, it can be rewarding.

A bunch of my friends and I have an annual vacation together and in 2002 it was my turn to organize, so naturally I arranged a wine weekend. We partied in Sonoma and toured some wineries. This shot is at Dry Creek Vineyards.

I have managed to keep my wine habit on a budget in a number of ways, including limiting the number of bottles I keep to about 12 cases, or under 150 bottles at any one time. To many people that may sound like a lot of wine, but to those with this vice, you will know that one must strike a balance between wines that are ready to drink now and ones which require a few years of age before they reach their optimal flavors. Also, I must balance how many bottles of Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Zinfandel, white wines and dessert wines to keep in the mix. All of this adds up to fun collecting given my limited storage space and self imposed restrictions on purchases.

Oh yah, I also like micro-brewed beers, but that is a different story for a different web page.


You can almost smell the oak. I think this was at the Groth winery, but after a while it is hard to remember.	Michelle looking down at the barrels	After a day of wine tasting in Napa, its nice to come home with a SCORE for enjoyment at a later date!