Tuesday, May 4, 2010

DCA's Food and Wine Festival -- The Wine Tasting


Mr. Diva and I headed down to the Food and Wine Festival at Disney's California Adventure on a mission to check it out for a friend. Being a picky eater and wine detester, I was interested to see how this would go, but we were both game!


One of the first areas you can imbibe is in the Beer Walk area just to the right of the Sunshine Plaza. You pay $10 and you can taste several different beers. We didn't do the beer walk, because I hate the taste of beer more than I hate the taste of wine.


There are two specific regions of wine available for tasting. Across from Grizzly Peak is the Italian wine tasting.


The Italian wines are from the region of Apulia.


It costs $10 to taste 4 wines from this region.


We opted for the California Wines since the theme this year was a Taste of California.


Again, it's $10 for a taste of 4 wines. You can taste one wine from each region of California, or you can taste all four from one region, or any way you choose to select the 4 wines. They give you a wine glass and a passport that is stamped each time you taste a wine.


We started with the Napa Valley wines and I decided to try one wine from each region.


This lady recommended that I try a white wine since I don't really like it. This Chardonnay is from Walt Disney's daughter's winery. Diane (Disney) Miller and her husband own the Silverado Winery in Napa Valley.


She told me to smell it.


Then taste it.


and........yuck! Too pungent and bitter!


I tried to finish it in two gulps on the way over to try the Paso Robles wines and got the yucky shivers all down my neck and back.


Again this lady recommended a Paso Robles white wine. This one was from Carina Cellars and is a Viognier.


I was a little apprehensive after the last wine, but gave it a shot. This wine was okay. Not one I would want a whole glass of, but it was definitely fruity and not so bitter. Better than the Disney wine.


Again, I swallowed it down on the way to the Central Coast region and got the yucky shivers again.


Yet again, it was recommended that I try the white wine from Tangent called Ecclestone.


The eyebrow says it all. Not good. It was milder than the Disney wine, but not fruity at all. I didn't like it.


I again swallowed it as fast as I could to get rid of it, got the yucky shivers and my eyes were watering at this point. I wasn't sure I could do another one, but I was determined.


At the Sonoma wine counter, the girl again recommended a Navarro Vineyards white wine called Gewurztraminer. She said this was a very sweet dessert wine. Okay, FINALLY! (I thought)


The look says it all. Obviously what I thought a dessert wine should taste like is vastly different than what it actually tastes like. Although definitely the mildest of them all, I'd had enough at this point, and the lady at the counter had mercy on me and told me about the pitcher on each counter. Apparently you can DUMP the wine in them after you taste them if you don't like it. HELLO? Why didn't anyone tell me that before?


That was it for my wine tasting experience. I just couldn't do anymore. I'm sure if you love wine that it would be a fun thing to do, but it's not something I'm going to try again. I still hate wine, but I do know that they each taste different. It may be all bad different to me, but I did learn something!



Here is a layout I did of my wine tasting experience. If you'd like to see close-ups, get details or see more of my Disney layouts, check out my scrapbooking blog, Plays Well With Paper.

1 comment:

Laurie Zeller said...

Oh Tami, you're such a trooper!! I'll be sure to send you $10 to reimburse you for taking one for the team and giving the wine tasting a try. Don't know if I can ever pay you enough to compensate for those "yucky shivers" though. I'll buy you a Malibu Mocha Frappe next we're at Disneyland, I promise!!