Gobbled Up The Vino This Turkey Day!!

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! and what a sweet one it was this year! Despite the tough year our country has had, the forecast looks good for the holidays, which seems like it's an obviously good thing.
I just wanted to share a little story about my eventful turkey day with all my FIFTEEN followers, you know who you are!!
My best friend Lindsey and I headed up to Ukiah for Thanksgiving this year. Being the wayward vagrant that I am I never really know who's Thanksgiving I am going to crash, so it was nice to be welcomed by the Madrigals for a very Merry Thanksgiving of 2011. Wifey did spend Halloween with my family in AZ so it only seemed appropriate for me to spend the next important holiday with her family. No, just because Wifey and I live in San Francisco and I call her Wifey does that by any means mean that we are in a homosexual relationship... it's more like a soul mate friendship sort of thing...but, in case you were wondering, no we are not in love.
More on the topic...the day after what promises to be the most hung over Thanksgiving Wifey has ever experienced, her wonderful and cheerfully Mexican pops took she and I wine tasting. I must be honest that I did not feel at all interested in drinking at the beginning of this venture but it's amazing how easily convinced I can be once the tasting has begun.
The first place Ray (Raymundo...yes, I love the fact that he is Mexican) took us is called Rivino (www.rivino.com/). Rivino is owned by two really lovely and welcoming Canadians. Ray and his wife (Lindsey's mother, Tammi) are both members of Rivino winery and they frequent the place often. It was a really lovely, quant and classy winery overlooking a great deal of vineyards. Jason and Suzanne only started producing wine a few years ago mostly because the vineyard was/is their backyard. Now, they produce the wine on a small scale as far as the industry is concerned but the wine is really delicious. I myself drink wine because of the experience and don't tend to spend too much invested time in how it's made, etc., etc. However, it was an interesting point of Suzanne's that no Oak is used in the production of their wine. Interesting and delicious. I like the Oak's absence. Farewell oak!
After 5 yummy tastings of Rivino wine, we bid the lovely Canadians farewell and headed out. As we are pulling out and jabbering about how great these two people were, Ray chimes in "wanna go to another one?" But of course! As I said before, once I have started drinking, it doesn't take much convincing to get the train to continue.

The second winery we visited, however, wasn't much like a winery at all. It was hidden among a row of warehouses and unless you were looking for it, you never would have known it was there. The entrance is a tiny metal door with an even tinier square window at the top. The kind of door you would expect was designed more to keep people out rather than to invite people in. Once inside this obscurely hidden tasting room, things got even more interesting. Looking around the small, square room was covered from head to toe with merchandise for sale, all varying from necklaces, to tiny beatle figurines, to those leather wallets that advertise 'hand made' but say 'made in Taiwan' in the bottom most corner. While I was looking around the tasting room that very closely resembled your typical Mission District dollar store, Ray begun conversing with the winery owner, who also looked like he might have been "made in Taiwan". Raymundo had found himself a fellow Mexican! Victor used to work for an upscale winery in the area called Fife, but over the past few years he had broken off and started this very non-stereotypical winery, call Simaine (www.simaine.com). I hate to stereotype, but it's not everyday you meet a Mexican who runs their own winery. I was both mystified and excited about what Victor was doing. His tasting room alone broke just about every idea of what I pictured a winery to be like. This, thankfully, also could be said for the tasting measurements. First, Victor asked, very politely if we were over 21, and then glanced over at Ray to verify that this information were true. Ray confirmed it, and so the tasting begun. The first wine Victor poured was a wine of some sort, but that wasn't what astonished me at all. What took me by surprise was how funn Victor filled the glass. I watched as he preceded to fill Ray and Wifey's glasses to the same lucrative level. This could become an interesting day, I remember thinking. At that moment, another family walked into the tasting room and suddenly we were something more like sardines in a can rather than 8 people tasting wine leisurely. Because of what I thought were spacial issues, Victor moved us all into the actual warehouse where the wine was both made, aged, and stored. As I turned the corner, I realized this was not a spacial move at all, this was part of Victor's entertaining process. There was a plastic picnic table topped with an empty Simaine wine bottle used as a vace for plastic, dollar store flowers. no, the irony did not escape me.
For the rest of the evening Victor proceeded to entertain us as though we were close friends or family who had been welcomed into his home for an evening of socialising and catching up. Victor even pulled out some of his homemade salsa verde and poured several small bowls which he placed between every other person and then a large bowl in the middle. And it was AMAZING!! The dishes actually reminded me of the dishes I grew up with in my home; white with tiny green flowers around the edges. This had turned out to be the most homey, welcoming, and fun wine tasting experience I had ever had. Victor shared wonderful stories about his life and family and we all chatted and got to know each other. It wasn't until wifey mentioned that we should probably go because Tammi had called about four times wondering where we were, that I realized how much time had gone by. That, and that I was good and well drunk. WHEW! We purchased a few bottles and sent ourselves on our way. Luckily this was not Ray's first rodeo and he had been refusing Victor's lucrative refills since an hour after we had arrived. Leave it to the retired police officer to be the responsible one.
If you ever find yourself in Ukiah, please take the time to visit Victor and his winery. They are two things that you will never forget.