Sip & Learn

Some people have a travel bucket list. Mine is basically a wine map with flight prices attached. ✈️🍷

I have a notes app on my phone that is essentially a living, breathing document of wineries I desperately want to visit someday. It started as a short list. It is no longer a short list. Domaine Drouhin in the Willamette Valley. Justin Vineyards in Paso Robles. Dry Creek Vineyard in Sonoma. Anything and everything along Highway 29 through Napa with the windows down, the radio up, and something extraordinary waiting at the next stop.

I’ve spent enough time studying wine to know exactly what I’m missing by not standing in the Willamette Valley when the morning fog is still sitting low on the vines. There’s something about that image that lives in my head rent-free. Cool air, quiet hills, a glass of Pinot Noir that smells like the earth it came from. I haven’t experienced it yet, but I can almost feel it.

Or what about tasting a Paso Robles Syrah in the same county where the grapes were grown, sitting on a patio somewhere with nothing on the agenda and nowhere to be? Or watching a Sonoma sunset with a glass of Russian River Chardonnay, the kind that’s all citrus and toasted oak and makes you wonder why you ever drank anything else? Or driving that long golden stretch through Napa Valley, pulling over at estates you’ve only ever read about, finally putting faces to the labels that have been sitting in your wine rack for years?

I haven’t made those trips yet. Life has a funny way of keeping you close to home. But here’s what I’ve learned from studying wine without yet seeing the world that makes it: knowledge builds hunger. The more I understand about these regions, the soils, the climates, the grapes, the people behind the bottles, the more urgently I want to actually go. It’s a beautiful problem to have.

Writing this week’s blog post felt like the next best thing to booking the flight — and honestly, it only made the dreaming worse. In the absolute best possible way. 😄

Come get inspired with me.

And now I genuinely want to hear from YOU. 👇 Drop your favorites in the comments below. If you’ve been to Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles, the Willamette Valley, or anywhere else along the West Coast wine trail, help a dreamer out. Where would you send someone who’s never been? What winery completely changed the way you think about wine? What bottle from these regions absolutely has to make it onto my list before I go?

The list on my phone has plenty of room. Fill it up. 🍷

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