Benziger Wine event

It was a beautiful weekend to be in Sonoma. Four of us drove up on Saturday for Benziger's annual wine club member open house. This is one of my favorite events of the year: plenty of sunshine and good food, barrel tastings, and a overall great time.

After arriving at the winery, we walked past a lovely garden before reaching the tented event area.

Does anyone know the name of these flowers? The way each flower looks like it's part of a bigger flower ball really intrigued us.

I know, where's all the wine photography? Unsprisingly, N and I were too mesmerized by the french fries to care about much else. They were being fried on site and scooped into paper cones, then topped with garlic aioli. Who could resist? And, surprisingly, the fries paired deliciously with a 2004 Stone Farm Syrah.

The food included a tasty (though cold) mushroom and spinach crepe, scallion flatbread, a very lovely green salad with seared ahi tuna, and an assortment of sandwiches.

The wine winner of the day was the 2005 Tribute, although the 2006 Oonopais Sonoma Mountain Red and the 2004 Stone Farm Cabernet were my two favorite price considered. Benziger's stone farm cabs continue to have a strong earthy tone remniscent of mushrooms. It was the first wine that really illustrated to me the ability of wine to reflect terroir, or characteristics of the soil where its grapes are grown. No other wine, even other Benziger wines, has that lush but dry mushroomy quality.