I had another chance to go to a wine tasting near my house at D.vine Fine Wines. It is all predicated on our schedules at home. I am still working a bit in my semi-retirement phase doing whatever I can to help and my schedule is not totally up to me. Then there is my Bride who works and does volunteer duties as well, so we are not always in sync for time. If this happens, I am trying to go to do some wine tastings to see what I may not otherwise try.

The first wine that I tried for the evening was a WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Gris 2016 from the Yamhill-Carlton Appellation in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. WillaKenzie Estate was created by Bernard Lacroute when he bought a four-hundred-twenty-acre cattle ranch in 1991. He began planting in 1992 and his first wines were produced in 1995. He planted Pinot Gris in 1992, 1993 and 1996 on 14.2 acres on his estate. The winery is now Oregon Certified Sustainable Wine, but the winery was sold to Jackson Family Wines in 2016. This wine was a very soft gold in color, very balanced and what I look for in a Pinot Gris (Grigio).

The second wine of the evening was Mira Winery Chardonnay 2015 from Napa Valley. Mira Winery is quite unique as the have bi-coastal wine tasting rooms. Of course, the first is in Napa Valley, and the second room is in Charleston, South Carolina; as a side note, I must say that we had a wonderful time there, but there were no tasting rooms when we were there. The fruit for this wine came from the Oak Knoll district in Napa Valley. The wine had a nice golden color and I could discern a touch of pineapple that I found appealing, and you know how much I dislike using descriptors for taste.