After living in California for a couple of years we went back to the midwest, where my husband is from, to see my in-laws.  There were lots of people to see and not too much time to see them.  One night, my in-laws decided in the interest of saving time, we could all just go to a nice dinner out at a well known Italian chain restaurant.  We were sitting at the large table and the waiter approached with a bar cart and asked if we would like to try any of their wines before ordering a glass.  That sounded great, so we made our requests.  The waiter poured us a sip of each and we picked up our glasses and looked into them and swirled the wine around for a second before sipping.  At that very moment I the table fell completely silent and I felt each and every eye at the table (and very likely in the dining room) when my embarrassed mother-in-law looked up and the waiter and very quietly explained to him that “...they’re from CALIFORNIA.”  The waiter looked up knowingly and said, “Oh, yeah?!  My uncle’s from Oregon.”

The California wine-scene (and, I am speaking only about the California wine-scene here, as it is all that I’ve experienced) is anything but the elitist, snobby, __ scene that we associate with wine.   If you go into Napa you are for sure going to experience some of that; real-estate in Napa is very expensive, and so you tend to see well established names and tasting rooms in the region as those are the growers that can afford to have wineries and tasting rooms in the Valley.  Napa is a destination, much like the well known Italian chain restaurant is a destination.  It is familiar and, for the most part, you know what you are going to get.  In Napa you are going to see Sutter Home and Robert Mondavi and likely many names that you see on your grocery store shelves.  Tastings tend to be on the expensive side, and as far as I’m concerned, not worth the money, all the wines kind of taste the same.

There are countless words that have been written about Napa and Sonoma wine, and I really don’t have anything to add to the discussion.  Instead of flying into San Francisco and heading North, fly into Oakland and head East.  The wine coming out of the East Bay is every bit as good as Napa or Sonoma (although, I very strongly believe it to be better), and you avoid the crowds, stupid expensive bottle and tasting prices, and get to, in many many cases, spend some quality time learning about wine from, in some cases, the winemaker themselves.  

So that’s my shout out to the East Bay wineries.  I love you and respect you all and can’t wait to walk in your doors and drink what you have to offer.