OK. No. Wait. Whitmore? What? Wine where?
Dakaro Vineyards, named for the owners, Dave and Kathy Roth, is about a half hour drive out of Redding up the Whitmore road. Easy to find and in a beautiful, peaceful setting, it turns out it is well worth the drive. The tasting room is a converted house, and we set up right out on the porch, though others stayed inside tasting.
We brought our own food, a couple coolers filled with stuff Gail and Kathy threw together: berries, grapes, cheese, crackers, olives, a meat tray and bottled waters. We set it all out on the table, pulled up a couple chairs and spent the next two hours slowly tasting our way through generous pours of ten wines. It was a lot of fun not only sampling the wine, but trying to pair them with the foods we brought. The pours were generous enough we could try several food combinations after our initial taste, and Dave was great about letting us have a dash more if we suddenly got inspired. In fact, we took several food pairings in to him to try as well.
Here are some simple notes on what we tried and if the pairings worked or not. Check out the photos below to see each of the wines. Also, see the Dakaro web site for their notes on the wines. Dave said (I think) that most of his wines are done in, and influenced by the French style, especially the Rhone, Burgundy and Roussillon regions.
We started with three whites.
Our first wine was a Meritage Blanc, a blend of 85% Semillon and 15% Sauvignon Musque. Up front it smelled a little funny to me, maybe earthy, but the taste was fine, crisp, not buttery at all. Steve and I thought we would drink a glass of this, but not a whole bottle, on a hot afternoon.
The second pour was the Voignier. It had a better nose, and I liked it better all around. It was nice and dry, crisp, not really fruity or buttery. We agreed we could drink a bottle of this by the pool.
I think we all liked the third best of all. It is named Obsidian Blanc, a blend of viognier, rousanne, grenache blanc and vermentino. Dave says it is semi-aged in Hungarian oak, which gives it a slight smoothness in the background, while it is crisp and clear up front. It paired well with parmesan cheese on Blue Star Farms multigrain crackers.
We shifted to a transitional wine, the Rosé, which was surprisingly good and not at all sweet. It went well with smoked salmon, but was better with raspberries.
I was looking forward to the reds, as I tend to favor those. Things were kicked off by Dakaro's Tempranillo, which is a good, medium bodied wine. I would have liked to try it with some tri-tip, but it tasted good with a cracker topped by peppered salami and BellaVitano Merlot cheese. The cheese I think mellowed the wine a bit.
Next up: the Big Springs Obsidian Red, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and Counoise. I really liked this. It had a pretty big, bold taste and the color kind of changed in the light from deep red to almost a glowing red, depending where I held the glass up. It led off with a great nose, and it is ready to drink now. It was great with a blackberry, and I bet it would go well with steak. Later in the afternoon, we split a bottle of this as it seemed to be everyone's overall favorite.
But, I preferred the Syrah. It was really jammy, really fruity in a good way. Not at all sweet, the strong taste just lingered in my mouth long after I swallowed. Great smelling, very dark dark color, it paired well with the smoked salmon, but was better with BellaVitano Merlot cheese and prosciutto on a cracker. It is really drinkable now, but I am going to set one aside to see what happens.
Finally we had a new, unreleased Cab Franc. I love cab francs. When it is released I plan to go buy a few bottles. Nice and dark red, great fruity nose, strong taste, I think it will store well for a few years. The wine was overpowered by the pepper salami, but the creamy Merlot cheese on handmade sourdough flatbread from the Rustic Bakery was perfect.
We finished up with two dessert wines, but I want to go back and try them again on a cool day in the late fall, when I have some chocolate, or perhaps blue cheese. I just do not like to drink sweet wines on a warm day, but that is me. We were able to sample the Au Contraire White Port (Voignier grapes) and the Red Port, made, I think, with Muscat grapes. But I was happy ending with the reds.
So, all in all we tasted and revisited three whites, one rose, four reds and two dessert wines, before settling in the garden area with a bottle of the Big Springs Obsidian Red and talking the afternoon away. I am glad I didn't drive!
Steve and I played horseshoes, and I jumped out to an early, commanding lead but then lost 11-4 in the end after he threw a couple ringers.
I think part of what made this such a great little day trip was the relaxing feel of it all. I have been wine tasting where you hurry through to get to the next place, or where you receive such little amounts it takes no time at all to swallow your three little $5 gulps even as you try to linger. Here we were able to just set up for the entire afternoon, encouraged to drink slowly, experiment and just hang out. The winery is isolated enough that you don't really want to string it together with the other close ones in Redding, Cottonwood, Shingletown and Manton, yet you could if you wanted to.
If I were to do this over again, the one change I would make would be to bring more varieties of food, for example some dark chocolates for the dessert wines, maybe a little cut of beef (tri-tip?) and chicken for the reds, a couple different cheeses, like blue cheese for sure, maybe with some roasted garlic, and perhaps a little more fruit like strawberries and peaches.
We bought six bottles. Price per bottle ranges from $15 - $24.
Update: November
The Graciano is a Spanish wine grape, and the color is a nice, deep fall red, like the leaves turning on the oaks in our front yard. The smell is very rich, berry like with a nice cedar-oak smell. It is like the perfect fall wine. I had never heard of this grape, see the wiki article below.
Later, we drank it with Gail's homemade pizza, topped with maple sausage, fresh picked oregano, and mozzarella, with parmigiano-reggiano shaved on it. It was the perfect meal, complemented by the wine.
Seems you really can't lose here at Dakaro.