Three Cute Wine Towns and One Odd Wine Device

Part One of a Two-Part Whirlwind Trip to California

“There are three cute towns in Sonoma: Sonoma, Healdsburg- and I forgot the other one,” a man loudly declared to a group of enthralled-looking women, including one in a t-shirt emblazoned with the word “Wine.”

I was in Cute Town One ever so briefly last week to celebrate the landmark birthday of a friend– which meant I spent more time in the cute town than I did in vineyards or winery tasting rooms. In addition to a celebratory meal at the ever reliable the girl & the fig in the town of Sonoma, we opened sparkling wines at a dinner at her home.

My friend loves all kinds of sparkling wine - she once worked at a California sparkling wine company. One evening she opened two bottles of sparkling wine with a pair of specialty sparkling wine pliers obtained from Piper Sonoma, the California sparkling wine house.

First, she opened a bottle of Mumm Sparkling Brut Rose ($20) a pleasantly creamy fruity frothy wine then another California sparkler I’d never heard of before: Breathless Blancs de Blancs ($22), a slightly toasty, light-bodied pleasant-enough sparkler made by a trio of sisters in Healdsburg. Its label—an old-fashioned pin-up girl astride an exploding cork – was more memorable than the wine itself. However mine may be a minority view- according to the Breathless website this particular wine was named “Best in Class” although both class and voters went unnamed.

More notable than either of the wines were my friend’s well-utilized sparkling wine pliers- a tool I’ve never owned. My friend explained that she had trouble opening bottles of Champagne and the pliers – which looked much like a regular pair of pliers- made removing Champagne corks a snap. Actually it was more like a pop than a snap since the pliers made the cork explode in a locker-room like style.

How is it I have lived so long and consumed so much Champagne without having ever employed a pair of Champagne pliers or seeing a sommelier putting said pliers to use in a restaurant? Did professionals employ such tools? I decided to ask a couple top pros.

Master Sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier, Partner and Beverage Director of Chambers restaurant in New York, told me that she has a pair of these pliers but rarely utilizes them save for when the cork “is really slippery and tight” while Carlin Karr, the Wine and Beverage Director of Denver-based Frasca Hospitality Group, like me, has never seen Champagne pliers before.

Since I do encounter particularly tight Champagne corks every now and again perhaps I should consider investing in said Champagne pliers one day- but right now I’m thinking more about the identity of that third Sonoma town. Travelers and fans of Sonoma care to weigh in?

Next Up: A chat with the scion of a California-based wine importer and merchant.

Scenes from my recent Sonoma sojourn