Livermore Tasting (2/15/09)

I completely stumbled about the town of Livermore while I was on a mission to "find snow'. The surrounding mountains where covered in clouds so Jennifer and I decided to try out a few wineries in the Livermore areas and we are glad we did!
The first Winery we tried was Concannon Vineyard ( http://www.concannonvineyard.com/ ). The grounds of this winery were absolutely amazing. From the road you see a giant facility that you assume must be a massive barrel room and equally beautiful tasting room. I was a little shocked when we pulled up the driveway and the tasting room was actually a double wide trailer in the back. The ambiance was even further subdued with the "porta potty" they were using as the bathroom. The double wide trailer was packed with folks celebrating the long president day/valentine weekend. There was a $5 charge for the tasting for non-members but you were able to keep the glass as a souvenir. The wines themselves were very good and they were having some steep discounts if you buy a case (50% off for many different varietals). I'm not sure if it was for the Valentines weekend but the winery owner must have a huge sweet tooth. They had chocolates and candy everywhere. It looked like somebody kids had gone tricker treating and filled a bowl full of random candy. Since I have a huge sweet tooth I was happy but I'm still a little confused which wine I was supposed to pair the butterfinger with... The tasting room staff were pleasant enough but they had their hands full with all of visitors. If you are looking for good wines and thinking about getting a case of Livermore wines this would be a ok place to stop. If they would move the winery into the massive facility they have or into the beautiful Victorian houses nearby this would of been my favorite but to me this winery tasting room distracted to much away from the experience to warrent another trip here.

The second winery we stopped at was Bent Creek Winery (http://bentcreekwinery.com/). This winery was a blast. The weather was pretty sour so we couldn't enjoy to much of the grounds but the staff said that when the weather is nice they have a couple places that you can enjoy lunch at by the creek. The tasting room itself looks like its a small barn off to the side of the winery owners house (not sure if that is really the case) but the barn was very quant and the staff inside were extremely nice and made the whole experience great. They had a large list of wines to taste and had no charge for the tasting. The person helping us was knowledgeable about the wines that they were pouring and even tried to help us on our quest on which surrounding mountains may have snow. There was home made chocolates to try with the port wine which was delicious. There was no pressure about buying wines which is always nice. Overall, this winery probably had the least expensive wine tasting facility of the wineries we tried this day but by far, we had the best time here and will be back.

Last but not least we made our way to Wente Winery (http://www.wentevineyards.com/). According to their web site there are actually two tasting rooms, one at the vineyard/golf course and one at their estate center. The one that I went to was their estate center. Wente Winery is the oldest continuously owned winery in California according to a plaque they had at the tasting room... The tasting room itself was packed the day we went but luckily it can hold a lot of people. There was no charge for their complementary tasting but they also were also offering a reserve tasting for a small fee. Even though they were packed the staff was able to get us a couple glasses and start our tasting off right away. The staff was friendly and tried to tell you a little about each wine but they were swamped so couldn't give to much personal attention to each person in the tasting room. This wine tasting room wasn't at the vineyard itself so it took away a little from the wine tasting experience but the grounds were nice enough and there was also a second winery at the same location so you could knock out two wineries with one stop if you wanted to.

Overall I had a nice time at all the wineries but my ranking as far as experience goes would be 1) Bent Creek Vineyards, 2) Wente Winery, and 3) Concannon Winery. If you were going solely on wine quality though I would flip the list.