In an ideal world, you wouldn't be here, at this particular tasting room, sampling Idle Hour wines…read more There would be no wine trolly dropping off inebriated women and men whose arms are already filled with bags overflowing with other Carmel Valley wines. All of the wines in this postage stamp of a place should be made by Anna Marie! And they all should be in beautiful bottles labeled with Tim Cantor's distinctive, otherworldly artwork. This is not a liquor store. This is not a wine bar. This is a tasting studio where artwork and artisan wine meet. You don't need to trip over a stray bottle of Talbott, Bernardus, or Testarossa on your way to pick up your next pour.
No, this is not an ideal way to try Idle Hour wines for the first time, even if they taste just as good. You should be tasting them in the Sierra Foothills town of Oakhurst, where the wines are made, as the first winter snows arrive in Yosemite, coating the peaks, domes, waterfalls, and redwoods in delicate shades of white. You should be sipping Anna's delicious Heringer Estate Vineyard Tempranillo (Sacramento Delta) by the dim, flickering light of a ponderosa wood fire. You should be enjoying this Arroyo Seco Viognier with a chanterelle mushroom and smoked salmon bisque. Your Love Ranch GSM "cuvée rouge" (Madera County) needs some grilled bison or lamb and a rugged mountain landscape capacious enough to take it all in. Your Santa Lucia Highlands Clone 777 Pinot Noir needs a DVD of "Sideways" playing in the background of your comfortable Queen's Inn room as you soak up its bright red cherry goodness while hoping that Maya, not Miles, is right about why we truly like and sometimes even love a well made, soulful wine. It does not work as well with a half dozen noisy strangers slurping their Petit Verdots enthusiastically and with abandon.
So you adjust. You pay your $10 tasting fee for the seasonal selection of 6 wines. You tune out the talkative mob of tasters by focusing on the tastes and smells in your glass. You remember your last snowshoe hike in Yosemite to the top of Inspiration Point. You fantasize about cedar plank grilled salmon and lingonberry sauce paired with the Pinot, or grass fed, chicory rubbed skirt steak served with generous glasses of Cab Franc. You buy a bottle or two of Anna Marie's newly released, award winning Tempranillo for the cellar and plan, next time, to do it a different way. But you don't regret your visit or judge the place, the people, or the wines too harshly. That elusive tasting room magic, it does not always happen at once. Not even in an ideal world!
