Ukiah Wine Tasting, part 2. Night Falls Early.
Sunday, 6 Nov 2016. 6pm.
After visiting the beautiful and delicious Nelson Family Vineyards outside of Ukiah (see Ukiah Wine Tasting) we headed back into town in search of lunch. Merhawk was interested in slumming it with a burger and fries. I was okay with slumming it, but her Yelp search led us to a place that was a little too slummy for me, a food cart in the parking lot of Home Depot. Nevermind that it had 4 stars on Yelp, I wasn't going to eat a hamburger cooked over a propane stove while standing in a busy parking lot swatting away flies. We called an audible on the play and went to an authentic Mexican restaurant nearby. At least there they had four walls, a roof, and no flies.
Simaine Cellars was the next winery we visited. It's on the edge of town in a non-descript warehouse park.
I remember last time we were here (2½ years ago) I wondered if Apple Maps had led us to the wrong place. But no, look carefully amongst the anonymous storage sheds and you'll see the winery's small sign on the corrugated aluminum wall.
Yeah, it's not exactly welcoming from the outside. But on the inside it was a party. One of the owners was here, sitting down and chatting with 5 guests at a round table. He motioned me to join the party and poured my first glass of wine.
Over the next half hour another one of the owners came in, as did another guest. Introductions were made each time; we were on a first name basis. It was a nice little party with total strangers. The only real downside was I didn't like any of the wines.
I remember from my previous visit that the wines had a syrupy character to them. One of my fellow guests remarked to me, sotto voce, "He leaves residual sugar in his wines because the women like it that way." That explained the taste. And while that flavor made the wines taste lush when I tried them a few years ago, today they tasted... fake. Like they were thinned out with water and then dosed with sugar as if that could make up for watering them down. I don't know whether the difference was just my palate or a bad batch now versus then, but I did not like a single one of the wines here. When Hawk came back from shopping to pick me up I said a hasty goodbye and snuck out the steel door exit.
Jaxon Keys Winery was our next stop. Going there meant leaving the small town of Ukiah behind and driving 10 miles south toward the even smaller town of Hopland. The winery is a bit north of town, its tasting room in a renovated farmhouse sitting atop a hill above the highway.
The wines at Jaxon Keys had a proper, fuller-bodied flavor compared to those at Simaine. They were all good, but... only "good". And they were a bit pricey, especially compared to the superior wines up the road at Nelson Family Vineyards (see previous blog).
I tried to enjoy the wines more by going out onto the large wrap-around porch. The weather was oddly warm, which made it pleasant to stand out there in shirtsleeves, but the promisingly bright sky of earlier in the day had grayed. And Hawk wasn't feeling that well. I paid for my tasting and left.
As we drove through the center of tiny Hopland I recalled how the Mendocino Brewing Company used to be located here. Their famous Red Tail Ale was one of the first microbrew beers I enjoyed. And we always liked the hawk art on their bottles.
MBC's tap room used to be in an old west style saloon building in Hopland's dilapidated 19th century core. When they were bought out by foreign investors years ago they moved up the road to Ukiah and relocated their tap room to a small, non-descript strip mall. It's not quite as shabby as Simaine's location but it's close. When I visited them at their newer location 2½ years ago I was underwhelmed. So I didn't bother visiting them this again weekend, even though their new tap room is just a few blocks from the hotel we stayed at last night.
We headed straight home from here, aiming to get in before it was fully dark. Alas, with this morning's time change it now gets dark shortly after 5pm. With that plus the cloudy skies it felt like night well before we arrived at about 5:30. Yup, winter is arriving.
After visiting the beautiful and delicious Nelson Family Vineyards outside of Ukiah (see Ukiah Wine Tasting) we headed back into town in search of lunch. Merhawk was interested in slumming it with a burger and fries. I was okay with slumming it, but her Yelp search led us to a place that was a little too slummy for me, a food cart in the parking lot of Home Depot. Nevermind that it had 4 stars on Yelp, I wasn't going to eat a hamburger cooked over a propane stove while standing in a busy parking lot swatting away flies. We called an audible on the play and went to an authentic Mexican restaurant nearby. At least there they had four walls, a roof, and no flies.
Simaine Cellars was the next winery we visited. It's on the edge of town in a non-descript warehouse park.
I remember last time we were here (2½ years ago) I wondered if Apple Maps had led us to the wrong place. But no, look carefully amongst the anonymous storage sheds and you'll see the winery's small sign on the corrugated aluminum wall.
Yeah, it's not exactly welcoming from the outside. But on the inside it was a party. One of the owners was here, sitting down and chatting with 5 guests at a round table. He motioned me to join the party and poured my first glass of wine.
Over the next half hour another one of the owners came in, as did another guest. Introductions were made each time; we were on a first name basis. It was a nice little party with total strangers. The only real downside was I didn't like any of the wines.
I remember from my previous visit that the wines had a syrupy character to them. One of my fellow guests remarked to me, sotto voce, "He leaves residual sugar in his wines because the women like it that way." That explained the taste. And while that flavor made the wines taste lush when I tried them a few years ago, today they tasted... fake. Like they were thinned out with water and then dosed with sugar as if that could make up for watering them down. I don't know whether the difference was just my palate or a bad batch now versus then, but I did not like a single one of the wines here. When Hawk came back from shopping to pick me up I said a hasty goodbye and snuck out the steel door exit.
Jaxon Keys Winery was our next stop. Going there meant leaving the small town of Ukiah behind and driving 10 miles south toward the even smaller town of Hopland. The winery is a bit north of town, its tasting room in a renovated farmhouse sitting atop a hill above the highway.
The wines at Jaxon Keys had a proper, fuller-bodied flavor compared to those at Simaine. They were all good, but... only "good". And they were a bit pricey, especially compared to the superior wines up the road at Nelson Family Vineyards (see previous blog).
I tried to enjoy the wines more by going out onto the large wrap-around porch. The weather was oddly warm, which made it pleasant to stand out there in shirtsleeves, but the promisingly bright sky of earlier in the day had grayed. And Hawk wasn't feeling that well. I paid for my tasting and left.
As we drove through the center of tiny Hopland I recalled how the Mendocino Brewing Company used to be located here. Their famous Red Tail Ale was one of the first microbrew beers I enjoyed. And we always liked the hawk art on their bottles.
MBC's tap room used to be in an old west style saloon building in Hopland's dilapidated 19th century core. When they were bought out by foreign investors years ago they moved up the road to Ukiah and relocated their tap room to a small, non-descript strip mall. It's not quite as shabby as Simaine's location but it's close. When I visited them at their newer location 2½ years ago I was underwhelmed. So I didn't bother visiting them this again weekend, even though their new tap room is just a few blocks from the hotel we stayed at last night.
We headed straight home from here, aiming to get in before it was fully dark. Alas, with this morning's time change it now gets dark shortly after 5pm. With that plus the cloudy skies it felt like night well before we arrived at about 5:30. Yup, winter is arriving.