Good Morning!

Coming up with titles for my blog is sometimes fun and sometimes difficult….this one was easy! I picked Artesa winery to visit second on our day of wine tasting for 3 reasons: It was really close to Truchard, I had heard the views were spectacular and I have tasted their wines before and had liked them and wanted my friends to have a large selection of wines to taste.

We pulled in and the fountains and views were everything I had heard about and the building alone was quite impressive…as we walked up the steps we took a few minutes for photo ops and of course being with women in high heels who have enjoyed a little wine, they hammed it up in the” Next Top Model ” fashion. We entered and they ask if we were there for a tour and we said just a tasting and we were sent into the tasting area and locked in our place at the bar. Next we knew, we were standing in front of Jesus Martinez our host for the our visit.

Jesus was fun and friendly and so were we. We started out trying white wine and then jumped straight over to the pinot noir’s and we stayed with the pinot’s for the rest of our visit. Before I get started on the flavor profile of all the pinots’….Let me say, I know the hosts in the tasting rooms work hard and there is probably many aspects of their jobs that are not glamorous (washing glasses, carrying cases, listening to people argue about which wine is “Better”)…but Jesus created such a free space for us to enjoy and express ourselves, it was magic. In our group of 4 we had: one who would rather have a Corona, one who likes wine but would normally drink 20 year old scotch, one who like a red with so much punch it will paralyze the tongue and myself who wants to try everything.

Jesus really had a knack for helping each of us find the beauty in each wine and all the while my pals are peppering him with questions about where to eat, drink and hang out in the area. He gave us enough room to have fun but keep us on point with the wines and tasting, he has excellent tempo when it comes to his guests. Jesus also witnessed the “Runway modeling” session as we moved from the parking lot to the tasting room and he finally mentioned he had watched us as we arrived, well, that made us feel like old friends from that moment forward.

I ended up buying 2009 Pinot Noir (several bottles) the very smooth, extremely velvety texture is what sold me. Normally, Pinot Noir always has a big cherry finish and I really enjoyed the smoky, leathery thing this Pinot had going on, so I picked up several bottles to cellar and try again in the future.

I will say Artesa is a beautiful place and I’d like to go back and tour the grounds and winery at some point…but what I will remember most about Artesa is Jesus. We will make a point to visit and taste here again!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi