Tony & Lori Nickel

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TONY:  Lori and I would maybe have a bottle or two a month for date night at home playing Scrabble after the kids went to bed. Then in  late 2009, Lori and I visited friends in the Sonoma area for a brief time and tried some amazing wines. One of these nights the four of us drank three bottles of 1997 St. Francis Merlot.  We woke up the next morning with no hangover or headache and made it to our first wine tasting at 10 am!  After that experience, my interest in wine went into hyperdrive. 

TONY:  To bring the same kind of enjoyment and friendship experience that we've shared with Murrys and Firmes since 2017.  We've had some incredible wines during our own tasting experiences and we've learned a ton about what each other likes. It's also a great reason to get together as well as travel like we did when we visited Santa Barbara and Paso Robles.

LORI:  Our quarterly wine tastings with Murrys and Firmes are carefree and fun in an atmosphere that's not at all stuffy or judgmental. And though we do have a lot of laughs, I always leave knowing I learned something about great wines while feeling happy to have shared it with such precious friends. This feeling is what we want others to  experience as we plan Vino Yay! tastings. 

TONY:  I don't remember the exact vintage, maybe a 2013 or 2014, but it was a bottle of Belleruche Cotes-du-Rhone, a Grenache-Syrah blend. It was the first time I was really able to pick out (and I mean really smell) aromas and flavors of tobacco, leather, and herbs. It was only an $11 bottle of wine that was maybe a year to two old. I think it was around that time I started reading as much as I could about where different grapes were grown and how wines were made.

LORI:  I'm all about experience when it comes to tasting wine, and one of the greatest winery experiences I've had was at Limerick Lane in Healdsburg, California. We were traveling with Scott & Lori, and being the English major I am, I wrote a limerick for them in the car on the way to the winery. I thought they probably got that all the time from their visitors, but apparently not. It went: 

Once there were four from Minnesota,

Who bought more wine than their quota.

Then they went to the Lane,

Where the Zins were insane,

And went home without care one iota.

(Yeah, I know it's not a perfect limerick.) Anyhow, the winery is small but very accommodating, and they pretended to love it. They took us on a lovely walking tour of the vineyard, poured us a lot of their crazy good wine, and a good time was had by all. 

TONY:   Most of it has been from reading monthly wine publications and finding sources on the internet.  In February 2022, I took the WSET Level 2 Award in Wines course from the Napa Valley Wine Academy passing with distinction. If you are interested in growing your wine knowledge, I would highly recommend the WSET courses as well as going through the NVWA.  I've also been watching some interesting, and knowledgeable video blogs on YouTube. If you haven't seen them, check out Wine Kings. You'll laugh while you learn.

LORI:  Mostly listening to Tony. He REALLY likes to learn and share wine knowledge. It's nice that he does the studying and I benefit from it too.

TONY:  Mainly to the California AVAs of Napa, Sonoma, Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, Monterey/Santa Lucia Highlands but have also been to Willamette Valley in Oregon, McMinnville in Washington, and even Hill Country in Texas. Picking a favorite is tough, but for sentimental reasons I'm especially partial to the Russian River Valley and Santa Barbara because I've experienced it with family and friends.

TONY:   To continue to build and expand our ideas for Vino Yay! We love to get together with our Vino Yay! friends and I can't wait to see where this adventure will take us!

LORI:  Vino Yay! of course, but we also want to travel to Italy. We had plans in 2020 that were cancelled, so we're hoping to make the trek in 2022.