west coast adventure: wine

My mom and I love wine. The Dionysian deliciousness helped inspire the whole vacation. Yes, like all the other lady tourists, we did wine tours and tastings in Napa, the amusement park for grown-ass women. It's crowded, a bit nauseating, full of over-priced souvenirs, and giddily fun.

We had a lovely start with Sterling Vineyards, which many travel guides refer to as the Disneyland of wineries. As you would expect, the wines weren't much good. Except for the Muscat Canelli dessert wine (13/100) which I could slurp down Capri Sun-Style. The best part of Sterling was the ride in to the tasting room: a gondola through the sky with amazing views of California countryside. It was better than the flying Dumbo rides.

We closed our first day of wine tasting at the Frank Family Vineyards because they serve champagnes (14/100). Coincidentally, Rich Frank, one of the owners of this winery, was a long time Disney executive. There were no rides except the bubble buzz.

On our way out to the coast, we happened upon the Francis Ford Coppola winery in Geyserville. While my mom got to see William Shatner at the airport, drinkin' Frank's Director's Cut Zinfandel (15/100) was as close as I got to any stars while in Cali.

Our final winery visit spun out of serendipity. We drove up from Northern California until we wanted to stop and landed in Eugene, Oregon. A woman at the motel recommended a Thai restaurant nearby. The waiter at the restaurant recommended an Oregon Chardonnay from King Estates (16/100) that's just the style my mom likes - more crisp than buttery with little oak.

We found out that King Estate Winery was right outside of Eugene, focused on sustainable practices, and had a restaurant to boot. Yes, please. We partook of an informative winery tour, unpretentious tasting, and a lunch with veggies grown on site. This was a winery that my mom actually considered buying wine from, but they didn't ship to Nebraska. You can't mail the magic kingdom.