Wine Tasting - The Sense of Touch
Touch is an important category of taste sensation. This is where we try to feel the wine on the palate. Here we seek to find impressions of such things as texture, body, temperature, and astringency. The aftertaste, finish, and length of a wine are all things we feel on our palate. We are looking for how the wine feels in weight (light, medium, full) and texture (silky, coarse, velvety). Try to observe how long the sensations last in your mouth. Most will tell you the longer it lasts, the better the wine!
Locals - A Collective Tasting Room
Come visit us at Locals located at the gateway to Alexander Valley in the once sleepy hamlet of Geyserville. Locals is a collective tasting room featuring the wines of 6 local boutique wineries. Taste over 30 unique wines from talented and noted neighborhood winemakers. These are small-scale producers making premium quality and hard to find award-winning wines.
While sampling these unique selections, discover the works of area black and white photographers, listen to music from local Sonoma Country musicians and be intrigued by Locals whimsical collection of art moderne wine accessories. It all combines to create an eclectic and tasty environment.
www.tastelocalwines.com
707.857.4900
yummy@tastelocalwines.com
Merlot (pronounced Mare-LOW)
Merlot is the most widely planted red grape in France’s Bordeaux region,
although it is eclipsed in stature by cabernet sauvignon, the grape with which it is routinely blended. In recent
years, Merlot has enjoyed
a explosion in popularity, especially in the United States, South America, Italy and Australia. In California, plantings
have risen from 4,000 acres in 1988 to over 50,000 today. 
A thin-skinned variety, merlot ripens earlier in the season then cabernet sauvignon and is less hardy, prone to a variety of ailments from shatter (the loss of potential fruit during flowering of the vine) to rot and mildew. It is more adaptable to cool climates than cabernet sauvignon, but similarly prefers a relatively warm growing environment.
Merlot’s popularity is due to the fact that it is softer, fruitier, and earlier-maturing than cabernet sauvignon, yet displays many of the same aromas and flavors – black cherry, currant, cedar, and green olive – along with mint, tobacco and tea-leaf tones. Although enjoyable as a varietal wine, it is probably most successful when blended with cabernet sauvignon, which contributes the structure, depth of flavor, and ageability merlot lacks.
Like cabernet, merlot is a good accompaniment to simply prepared beef and lamb dishes.
