I never thought I would experience Six Flags like thrills on a winery tour until I was invited by Rick Bakas from St Supery to visit Dollarhide Ranch. Rick promised spectacular views and that he’d break out the VGS (very good shit). He was right on both counts.
After our Goosecross excursion, we met a larger group at Dean & Deluca where we stocked up on provisions for our Dollarhide Ranch picnic. Wine. Check. Glasses. Check. Food. Check. Rick piled in our disco tour bus appropriately named for the cheesy lights that were around the interior and off we went.
So picture two caravans with a total of 12 women going up a really, really, really steep hill. Or at least trying to. I mentioned a few posts ago how much food we ate over the weekend and the bus was having some issues due to the recent rain. We got halfway up. Then went down again. And again. Just when we resigned ourselves to hiking it up the hill, our driver gunned it and up we went. The view was gorgeous and made even more so by a glass of the 08 Dollarhide Ranch Reserve Sauvignon Blanc ($37), my hands down favorite Sauvignon Blanc of the trip.
Then it was time for the picnic portion of our trip. We gunned it down the mountain taking out several wine glasses and from the sound of it, a tailpipe. My two friends in the back experienced zero gravity as they bore the brunt of the vehicle landing. The weather did not participate due to the boggy ground so we weren’t able to have lunch by the picnic tables near the 150 year old oak tree. So we went old school — eating our lunches on the ground with another glass of the Sauvignon Blanc in hand.
We were supposed to venture back to the winery to barrel taste and tour, but we had such a great time at Dollarhide Ranch, we had to power through our tasting. I wrote about the wines that I tasted during the last St Supery Tweetup including the St Supery Sauvignon Blanc, St Supery Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, St Supery Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford, Virtu and Elu, so I’ll spend time on the ones that I had not tried before.
We tried many wines, but for the purpose of this blog and to not disclose how many we tried, I’m going to highlight a few. We started with the 08 Semillon, which had a big peach taste with a nuttiness that I liked. At $25, it was a very refreshing wine. I am a big fan of “off the beaten path” varietals and I enjoyed the 06 Petit Verdot ($50). It was a big wine with lots of berries, spice and earthiness. The estate 05 Dollarhide Cabernet ($85) was another big boy that needed some age. I tasted big flavors of black cherry, currant, vanilla tobacco, chocolate and mocha.
We were also indoctrinated to “Rickisms,” unforgettable colloquial sayings. Because this is a family column (ignore first Rickism above), my favorite printable one is “drop my name and drop it like it’s hot.” So for a great afternoon of wine tasting and an amazing view, ask for Rick, make sure you have unbreakable stemware and your vehicle has traction.
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