How My Journey With Wine Began

Two roads diverged in a wood and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference.

~From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Founder Joe Donelan pouring wine at the wine tasting

I went to my first wine tasting on Saturday, May 26 at Shubie’s in Marblehead. Being the youngest there, I was slightly intimidated by the other attendees who I assumed knew more about wine than I did. It got worse when a woman actually asked if they had checked my ID, playing it off as if she were joking. I ignored this and continued to listen while each of the eight wines were explained and poured.

The wines

Upon entering the wine tasting area, which soon got crowded as more people kept coming, we were handed a wine glass and a handout of the Donelan wines we would taste, starting with white wines and moving to red. The wine bottles were set up in the same order as the list, the order in which we would taste them, with handouts piled in front of each so we could read the content and a little history of each wine. I made sure to get a handout for the Chardonnay “Nancie,” which I ended up purchasing, as well as the handout for the Walker Vine Hill Vineyard Syrah, my favorite of the red wines.

Family is clearly an important aspect of the Donelan Wines. It is, after all, a family business, which became more evident during the tasting. Many of the wines  were named after the family members of founder Joe Donelan, who was present at the tasting. Other wines were named after the vineyards from which they originated.

This may have been my first wine tasting, but it is not the first time I’ve tasted wines. It is, however, the first time I learned about how the wines were made, which made the experience more enriching. Donelan informed me that this is one of the reasons he created his Sonoma Valley boutique winery, to “help educate people in the joy of drinking wine.”

The first wine at the tasting, Chardonnay “Nancie” was named after Joe Donelan’s mother

“Wine is a journey not a destination.” This is the signature of a Donelan wine for good reason. The Donelans journey to different vineyards, seeking out specific aspects that would make their wines unique. To use the words of Robert Frost, they take the road less traveled by, making terroir wines, wines that are unique to their vineyards. Wine isn’t a destination, Donelan explained, because they are “constantly trying to improve the wines to make them more approachable and engaging.