Joe Canal's Staff Visits Sonoma & Napa - Part 3

All of our managers and wine staff travel at least once a year to a wine-growing region somewhere throughout the world. Traveling is one of the many aspects of Joe Canal’s that sets us apart from other wine shops. We know that by meeting the winemakers, walking the vineyards and tasting new wine from the barrel, we can see first-hand the passion that goes into each bottle. We can then convey this commitment to quality to our customers. Rather than having you just looking at a label and a score, we believe it is our responsibility to bring you closer to how the wine was made and the people who made it. We'll be sharing their trip reports with you here on the BottleBlog.

In October 2011, members of our staff including Shannon Spare from our internet department, had the privilege of traveling to California wine country! Here is the next installment of the trip, as told by Shannon.

Day 2
Rodney Strong

We awoke early on Wednesday morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (somewhat). We hopped in the car and, after a short pit-stop at Starbucks for some much-needed coffee, headed to Rodney Strong for the day’s first tour.



We were greeted by our tour guide, Leo, who had been with Rodney Strong for about a year and absolutely loved his life. He offered us a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and we toured the massive facility, including the steel fermentation tanks and enormous barrel room.



We took a brief stroll through the vineyard, and he explained how they use a refractometer to measure the sugar in the grapes to know when to harvest them. (I discussed this in detail in an earlier blog post, entitled Brick by Brix.) Since the sugar in the wines is what gets converted to alcohol in the fermentation process, the sugar content of the grapes will allow the winemakers to get a rough estimation of what the final alcohol content of the wine will be. It was definitely interesting!

We returned to the tasting room where we tasted through some Rodney Strong Wines. We tasted four Cabernets, a Meritage, a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay. My favorite wine at Rodney Strong was the 2007 Rockaway Vineyard Single Vineyard Cabernet. It was very fruity and bold, and I wished very badly for a bite of good steak to enjoy with it!


We thanked our gracious host for the wonderful tour and were on our way.