Monday,
June 02, 2008
Bocce Enhances
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Pedroncelli Winery was
the first to install a Bocce Court 20 years ago, but recently the it has
become the rage, and it is more uncommon for a winery not to have one.
Its
a fun sport that is simple for everyone to
learn, and easy to play, although the level of skill and expertise of some can
be impressive.
By Janis Cooke Newman
Special to The Times
May 27, 2008
Here
This means that,
unless you want to come back from your weekend in the wine country looking like
you stepped from the pages of the National Enquirer, you have to pace yourself.
You have to find something to do between tastings.
This is where boccie (sometimes spelled bocce) comes in.
According to the
U.S. Bocce Federation, back in the time of the Punic Wars (circa 200 BC), Roman
soldiers played boccie to unwind between
confrontations with the Carthaginians. Their version of the game largely
involved throwing big rocks at a smaller rock. Two thousand years later, the
modern adaptation of this rock-throwing turns out to be just as therapeutic
between confrontations with Cabernets. And the object of the game hasn
Winery owners
realize this. Every week, it seems, a truck arrives at yet another tasting room
and dumps a load of limestone and crushed oyster shells into a newly
constructed boccie court.
I consider this
an excellent trend because it combines two of my favorite things: a sport that
requires no actual skill and wine. It
Backyard
hangout
Our first stop
was Seghesio Family Vineyards, just outside the town
square. Playing boccie at Seghesio
is like playing boccie in the backyard of your
Italian uncle
And Seghesio
At Davis Family,
our second stop, the court was shorter (about 60 feet), but the setting went a
long way toward making up for it. As did the fact that my "banking"
(the word for purposely knocking your boccie ball
against the sidewall) is more accurate than Chris
The single court
at Davis Family is next to the
Davis Family
Next up was the
collection of tasting rooms at
There
Farther north in Geyserville is longtime wine producer Pedroncelli.
Their boccie court, at 20, may be the oldest in the
area and has a pretty setting, pressed into a trellised hillside covered with
grapevines, rosemary bushes and olive trees.
Twenty years
worth of boccie-playing feet have stamped down the Pedroncelli court into an uncommon hardness. Which makes it fast. Put any force behind your throw and you
Pedroncelli has some of the most
reasonably priced wine of all three valleys. Downing a glass of its deliciously
dry and spicy Zinfandel rosi ($10 a bottle) is an
excellent way to put some drag on your ball.
Boccie with the best view
Hands down, the boccie court at Armida Winery has
the best view. Up a winding driveway and away from the road, it
The court at Armida, decorated with a snarling Venetian-style stone lion
at each end, falls into regulation length. The winery supplies players with a
print-out of the rules of boccie, which contains one
quirk. According to the Armida rules, the game is
played to 16 points, not the 13 dictated by the U.S. Bocce Federation.
Unfortunately, neither of us is are good enough to
score more than one or two points per round, which meant that a game to 16
could conceivably last as long as the Punic Wars.
Fortunately, we
were in no danger of getting thirsty. Armida makes
some of my favorite wines. Its Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are always fabulous.
And the Pinot Gris, followed by a lengthy game of boccie,
can render you relaxed enough to face a whole hillside of Carthaginians.
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