sonoma: lynmar winery and american drinking habits

The Lynmar Winery tasting room is housed in a sort of glorified barn. It's actually pretty fancy, but the architecture I found a bit funny. Keely loved the wines here so we came home with some Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Rose. They were out of Pinot Noir. How can you be out of pinot in Russian River valley? Scroll down to find out.

Anyway, at Lynmar, the estate Chardonnay was 10 times better than the blend, much more character and complexity. It's usually that way, even in an objective tasting. Of course, the estate wines costs more too. I'll try to pull out my tasting notes and wine lists from our tastings to update this blog when we return to New York in August.

Here's the deal on running out of pinot: Americans drink their wine fast. There's very little aging in this country unless you can afford to buy enough volume that you can't possibly drink it all. Only then does some stay in your cellar. Or in my case, in the wine fridge under lock and key. After this trip I have to buy another fridge. What I really need to do is move to the country and build a house with a proper cellar, but that's another story/dream.

In any case, the better the winery, at least in Sonoma and Napa, the faster the wines sell. And the better the wine, say, an estate wine, or vineyard specific wine (for example, Porter Creek Hillside Vineyard Pinot Noir, which they were also out of), the faster it sells. Most good bottlings from reputable small producing wineries sell out in 3-4 months, or so I was regularly told at the wineries. And to prove it, I kept sidling up to the tasting bar only to find out that the 2004 is sold out, sometimes there was a 2003 laying around that I could buy but not taste, and the 2005s aren't expected until August -November.

What this means is, besides the need to buy quickly, if you are coming out to wine country to taste, new wines are typically released around March/April and September/October, depending on the grape. Old wines are sold out. So if you want to taste the good stuff, you'd better come at the right time. Come out around May or November. Otherwise, you may find yourself like I did, even in the first week of June, with spring 2006 releases of a 2004 or 2005 (if white) vintage already sold out.

Naturally, after a certain amount of tasting without spitting (which I was forced to do much more of in the next days) leads to a bit of giddiness.

I found out later shopping at Bottle Barn that the prices we paid were a tad inflated. In some cases by as much as $10/bottle. Never get drunk and then buy wine. You ALWAYS spend too much.