Wine Tasting in Livermore

This past weekend, Eric and I met up with some good friends in Livermore to go wine tasting. We started off with a yummy lunch at Garre Winery and Vineyard and then headed over to their tasting room. I have never been much of a red wine drinker, but found one with blended reds that I actually enjoyed. We then headed off to Cedar Mountain Winery, The Singing Winemaker, and finally Concannon Winery. Other than Livermore, I have only been wine tasting in Lodi. Most of the wineries in Lodi have free wine tasting, so if you are a newbie, I suggest to start there. Livermore wineries charge from $5 to $20 but most of them waive the fee if you buy a bottle of wine or let you keep your wine glass as a souvenir. A friend from church also suggested wine tasting in Apple Hill. I googled Apple Hill and now have put it on my list for wine tasting locations to visit (http://www.applehill.com/). Now on to the pictures...

I made Eric stop off on the side of the road so that I could take this picture. If you are a scrapbooker, you will understand the insanity and necessity behind the picture. When viewing the picture with a higher resolution, you can actually read the different wineries that are on or near Tesla Rd.

I didn't have my camera with us during most of our tasting so was not able to get a good picture of the vines with grapes. Despite the teasing from the boys, Wendy and I both thought it was cool to see the vines up close with grapes.

The last winery we visited let us keep our glasses.

Wendy and Paul

Wendy and me

The 3 wines that Eric and I ended up buying.

This was the blended red wine that I was talking about earlier from Garre Winery.

Eric and I both enjoyed sampling this wine at The Singing Winemaker.

I think my favorite wine to date is Sauvignon Blanc. This could change because I never knew I could get past wine coolers (I know... pathetic). I have slowly made my way up to Rieslings to White Zins to Sauvignon Blancs and now on to a few reds.

At the end of the day, we were able to restock our wine cabinet/wine chiller with 3 new wines. We never knew how long wines last unopened until our visit to Cedar Mountain Winery. All white wines need to always be chilled and for full flavor must be opened and used within a year. Red wines can last unopened for three to four years. We have a lot of white wines to go through in the next year.