Day Five in California

Day five started with a two hour drive south to Livermore, Central Coast to visit family owned and run Wente winery.

We were greeted by Christine Wente, fifth generation who hosted the tour and tasting. The Wente estate is also home to a golf course which is set within the vines as well as a venue for weddings. We took golf buggies up to the top of the vineyard to get a sense of the Livermore valley and afterwards shown around the gardens. The garden is where a large amount of produce is grown by gardener Diane who we had the pleasure of meeting. Diane set the garden up over 10 years ago which has now grown in to a spectacular producing garden for the restaurant.

We had a delicious meal with the famous pork steaks whilst going through their range of wines, my favourite for value and taste was the Riva Ranch. A range of Wente wines are available at The Wine Shop.

We then had a drive cross country to Lodi, to get insight to the area. We had a presentation given by Camron King and a walk around tasting which enabled us to speak to the winemakers and taste their wine.