Friday, August 8, 2008

Second Day in Truckee

Our second day in Truckee followed a day of shopping and lunch at Casa Baeza. We headed to historic downtown Truckee and enjoyed stopping in a few of the shops.

This is where Jen and I had lunch with foodie friend Deborah and her hubby Jeff last year which we enjoyed very much. In case you can't read the name, it is The Pacific Crest restaurant.
The Cooking Gallery is one of the kitchen shops I look forward to wandering through. I found some fun things to add to Jen's birthday present here -- a very good pair of tongs that lock closed with a flick of a finger making storage very easy and a distressed looking wooden sign that says "la cucina" on it for her new kitchen when tshe, John and the kids move.
There is a relatively new wine tasting bar and gallery in town called Bacchus & Venus we decided to stop in to. The three of us (Jen, David and I) shared tastings of 2 flights. Many of the wines are from boutique wineries or from famous wineries but the grapes didn't quite make the cut for $100 plus bottles of wine, yet made very decent wine. We came across some interesting finds. Jen and I especially liked the 2007 Laird Family Cold Creek Ranch Carneros Pinot Grigio. Very clean, very smooth, very bright in the mouth. Great sipping wine for anytime and big for the summer months. (That's Jessica our hostess behind the wine bar. She was delightful and well knowledged on wines and pairing foods with wine.)

Jen and I also loved the J R Storey 2005 Tempranillo Paso Robles. This red with its ripe fruit flavors creates a wine of elegance and grace. (That's Jen tasting by the way.)
David's favorite was the 2004 Mt. St. Helena Brand Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. We bought some of these three wines. We tasted 8 wines in all, and though some others were enjoyable, these were the ones we felt worth purchasing.

The wine bar and gallery is a very pleasant place to be. The art is all wine/wine country related; original oil paintings, hand made wine glasses, wine stoppers, et el.
We were tempted to purchase, especially for gifts, but it seemed to the three of us everything was a tad if not more overpriced.
Jacob sitting with grandad away from the wine bar (for legal reasons of course), though close enough to us he could see us, had to taste something too! He was good all day, but when he saw us all tasting, he screamed for a formula bottle to taste as well! It was a very relaxed and enjoyable day.


1 comment:

Sarah said...

Looks like a great day!!