Sparkling at J Vineyards, Russian River Valley
Not everything that sparkles in California is gold. Sometimes it's J! With the holiday season approaching, I found myself in Healdsburg in the heart of Sonoma County a week ago speaking at a technology growth and innovation conference . Meeting many cool and impressive techies and social media gurus was a lot of fun. That, plus a picture-perfect 80-degree weather in the middle of November put me in a groovy mood. So on the way back to Palo Alto, I felt like sparkling wine. Sonoma county is relatively well known for a number of reputable sparkling wine producers, who make bubblies in the traditional Champagne method (i.e. second fermentation in the bottle). In my mind, with all due respect to all other methods of getting CO2 into a wine, the method of Champagne is the only way to go for any serious drinkin'! And while nothing touches Champagne itself (with the exception of perhaps Italy's Franciacorta and Trento DOC), our traditional method domestics from Napa, Sonoma and Me...