ALONG COMES MARY

Remember last week when I introduced you to San Antonio Winery? Well, the reason for that amazing afternoon in Downtown LA was for their “Wine Blending” class they were holding. When the invite appeared in my inbox, do you think I hesitated to say YES?!

San Antonio holds several varietals (get it?! Hehe) of classes throughout the year at all 3 of their locations: in Ontario, California, Paso Robles, California & of course, their original Downtown LA winery. For the wine blending afternoon, guests were treated to not only a plentiful of WINE & a buffet luncheon, but, the opportunity to LEARN from the wine makers of San Antonio on blending & creating your own wine, which you also get to have bottled & labeled to take home. All for just $45. How cool is that?!

For the course, we were given 4 glasses: 3 to taste the 3 varietals of reds we were enjoying, & the 4th glass to experiment with mixing to create our dream red blend. The real kick was all the cylinders on each table; to truly mix & learn the percentage of each vintage we wanted to blend. I was back in Science class, only WAY more fun 😉

Keeping to a “class” environment, our teachers/hosts explained several great points to learning & introducing their “students” to wine: Useful terms they went over included Fermentation, Tannins & Corks, as well as “Lets Talk Varietals”, “What does ‘Vintage’ Mean?” & talking blends. All extremely interesting to be educated on before we begin blending & deciding how much of each red we want in our creation.

For our mixing delights, we were given a very bold Cabernet Sauvignon (2011) from San Simeon, a bright Opaque Malbec (2011) from Paso Robles & a 2011 Merlot, also from San Simeon. The latter was my favorite, which was a very hard decision. The Merlot had much complexity to it, initially giving a fruity vibe upon first sip, only to move into a deeper, more bold spice when swallowed.

For my very own blend(!), I went with 65% Merlot, 20% Cabernet & the remaining 15% Malbec. The outcome? Well, lets just some of the lovelies at my table followed my suit, so, I think that means I did good! It somehow made for a very bold, bright taste with plenty of the spice I look for in a red. Appropriately naming it  “Along Comes Mary”, it was recommended I let it age for a bit….so, in the kitchen it sits…til probaly Christmas. Can I wait that long? We shall see!

With plenty more awesome classes & events coming up, like a chocolate paring (Ontario), a Stella social (Paso Robles) & one I am looking forward to, The Riboli Family Dinner (Downtown LA). San Antonio Winery is certainly THE spot to be at if you love wine, whether learning about it, drinking it or both! get more info HERE & I hope to see you there soon! xo

(*Disclosure: I was invited to this class. All opinions are my own & it was fabulous!)