Monday, August 15, 2011

2,500 Page View Celebration - Not So Much...

Well, we went to 15C to break open a bottle Anselmann and there was something just not right with the bottle. It wasn't corked, but everyone agreed that it wasn't right. So... Miss Stephanie (from the fabulous Broadside, Giornatta & Il Campo Labels) suggested we try Adami Prosecco as it was so crisp, tangy & tart. We did and were very happy with our celebration bubbles. Here's Boyfriend with our dear Stephanie:


Here's a close-up on the Prosecco:


And here's me, celebrating this small accomplishment - woo hoo!


And lucky me, my buddy, Lindsay who is now the fabulous Tasting Room Manager for Thatcher Vineyards showed up with her beau, Nick and we all celebrated with bubbles! Bubbles are kinda our thing....


But embarrassingly I tipped over a glass which broke, and as we were cleaning it up, Boyfriend also tipped over his glass and broke it s well! Oy vey! Time to go home, apparently! Not sure what happened, but it was one for the record books :)

Through it all, we still celebrated 2,500 page views! Thanks to all of you who looked at this little blog! We'll celebrate again at 5,000 page views - woo hoo!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

L'Aventure Rose

I work at a winery that lets folks who sell wine for them stay on the property as a "thank you." Hence, here comes Chuck & Jenny to stay for the weekend - Chuck works for Titan Distributors down in Southern California & he sells tons of wine.

So today, Chuck was headed down to L'Aventure to do some wine tasting as he sells the L'Aventure vino. I mentioned - "Hey, please check out the GSM rose as I haven't had it yet." Chuck countered, "I have had it as I sell it and it is FABULOUS. I'll bring you back a bottle." What?

Sure enough, Chuck comes back and delivers a bottle of the L'Aventure Cote A Cote GSM Rose into my hands - what a guy! I was thrilled as Boyfriend and I have been wanting to get over to L'Aventure to try it but haven't had the chance.

But alas...poor Boyfriend didn't get a chance to try it as we all killed it in the tasting room before I made it home - woo hoo! :) OMG - this rose was amazing. It's Mourvedre based GSM rose that is still light on the palate and doesn't have the earthy, heavy, barnyard quality that so many Mourvedre based roses have. I'd go on about all the details except for the fact that Boyfriend & I are planning to hit L'Aventure on Monday to try all of their wine & I will blog about it, + I'm about to post my blog on roses and this wine will surely be featured.

In the meantime, Here's a photo of the generous Mr. Chuck with his gorgeous wife, Jenny:


Notice my new haircut & color? Isn't it fabulous? That should be a blog post all on it's own - but let's just say that Danica @ Bluebird Salon in SLO rocks!

Back to the vino - here's the bottle of the Cote A Cote Rose:



I simply adore L'Aventure wines. I ponder, why can't all wines be this good? As I've said on this blog before, "Damn you, Stephan! You have ruined my palate! I now judge all wines by your marker." Soooo looking forward to Monday & catching up with the folks @ L'Aventure.

In the meantime, Au Revoir! & a BIG thanks to Chuck & Jenny for the rose :)

Tasting Room Celebrity Owling!

Today Lindsay's (aka Tasting Room Celebrity's) sunglasses fell on the pavement and the lenses fell out. I immediately realized that this was the perfect opportunity for an Owling photo op. But alas, Lindsay was a wimp and didn't fully go for it - this was the best I could do to make her look like an owl:


Now for those of you who do not know what owling is: where on earth have you been? I mean, my goodness, owling is the most important thing happening out there in the world today!

Here's the history: first there was planking. People laid down in random places looking like a plank, photo was taken, it was put on the web and went viral. But alas, now planking is passe as it was replaced by leisure diving (my personal favorite.) People do fully staged scenes diving into pools but looking as natural as possible - it's hilarious. Leisure diving even has it's own formal website: leisuredive.com. Please check it out for a good laugh.

But now, now there is owling. Wikipedia says, "Owling is the practice of crouching "like an owl" in unusual places." Here's an article about it with photos: DailyMail

I'm sure you can understand my distress when I asked Lindsay to owl and all she did was fluff her wings. Oy vey!

But my favorite owler of all is my dear rescued rooster, Mr. Rooster (clever name, eh?) Here's a photo of the master himself:


Lindsay - you've been outdone by a rooster! Shame on you..... tee hee :)

And woo hoo! We're getting close to 2,500 page views! Boyfriend & I are planning to break open a bottle of Anselmann Sparkling German Riesling on Monday night @ 15C to celebrate! Help us get to the 2,500 mark to make our celebration honest :)

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Kai Lana Sushi

Ok. Boyfriend & I go to Kai Lana in Atascadero probably twice a week. We're complete addicts. It's actually a little embarrassing as when we leave they all say, "See you tomorrow!" Right.......

So our faves @ Kai Lana are the Spicy Tuna Tempura roll (spicy tuna deep fried), the hungry roll (spicy tuna with salmon deep fried) & the popcorn roll (deep fried lobster over spicy tuna) - all of which have the common theme of being deep friend in some sort of way...Oh Yeah....


But...alas...I noticed my waistband getting a little tight as of late. Oh dear, time to cut back. So Boyfriend & I were looking at the menu when the waiter suggested that we try the Japanese spring roll - a spring roll but in sushi form! We were intrigued and had to order. Here's what it looked like - isn't it gorgeous?



So healthy & light. I could eat 10 of these at once and still lose weight - woo hoo!

Here's Boyfriend's vote of approval:


So yes this roll was good, but was it s good as the deep fried rolls? Well...........

We heart Kai Lana! We'll be back - hopefully 20 lbs. lighter :)

Though this blog doesn't have anything to do with wine, sushi is ALWAYS blog wothy in my book :)

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Women Winemaker's Part Duex

(Message for SAM: I know, I know - Part Duex of the Women Winemakers blog is beyond past due. I mean, I don't even remember writing PART ONE. But I will do my best to write Part Duex although that night is enveloped in lemoncello haze.....)

First off, I am excited to announce that Lucia's Women Winemakers Website has launched and is live! Congrats, Ms. Lucia! I am so thrilled for you. Everyone - check it out. It's pretty neat. And of course you'll be sure to find your favorite Californian female winemaker on the site.

To add to the excitement of the website launch, the online magazine, "Wines & Vines" wrote a headline article about Lucia's website - woo hoo! I'm especially excited as Wine & Vines used one of my photos for their article. You can read the article HERE.

Now on to the bloggosphere. Part One of the Women Winemaker's blog left off with the sun setting and the rowdy bunch of women winemakers + us tag-alongs going inside. Now I have to admit I went into this whole event with an agenda. Before I attended the party, I had a great talk with Lidsay (aka "Tasting Room Celebrity") about the fact that I would be doing this blog on Women Winemakers. Now Lindsay's parents own the winery, Dolce Robles, and one day, Lindsay will be taking it over and she herself may be a winemaker. She had commented on how great it would be for all the local women winemakers to get together on a regular basis to talk about what's going on in the industry, to allow up and coming women winemakers have an arena to ask some questions, and to just generally be a support for each other. Shizam! The Paso Women Winemaker's group was born. I'm currently putting this together with the hopes that we can all meet every other month for a party at various locations. We'll have a communal blog set up where women winemakers can post little articles on challenges, success or just ruminations, and fellow winemakers will be able to comment & interact online. Each party will have various themes to keep up focused, and well always have it centered around wine so we can stay up-to-date with what's happening at fellow wineries.

The biggest hurdle of all of this is the name of the group (hee hee.) Boyfriend came up with "Wine Goddesses Uncorked" which I love, but Lindsay shot down. Lindsay came up with "A Bunch of Grape Women" which Boyfriend liked, but it was too corny for me. Any votes about these two or suggestions for other names would be much appreciated!

On a side note: I was at a Lone Madrone Burger Sundays a while ago and told Neil Collins about this new, local women winemakers group. Neil got (sarcastically) mad and said, "Why is there all this attention on women winemakers? What about men winemakers? I'm starting my own group for men winemakers then!" So Neil and I will now have dueling winemaker groups - one for women and one for men. I can't wait to see where this leads :)

Now back to the party. We're all hanging out and chatting when Stormy, SAM's boyfriend, mentions that he & SAM had recently made a batch of lemoncello from an awesome recipe found in Sunset Magazine. He started telling me about how the used 100 proof alcohol and that all you can really have is a teaspoon otherwise it will knock your socks off! Though the lemoncello had only been sitting for a few days we had to break into it.

Now this lemoncello was absolutely beautiful. Big slices of lemon were floating around amongst sprigs of fragrant lavender.


Here's a photo of SAM pouring me some. Note how she's giving me more than a teaspoon. Yes, this is where the sugary sweetness gets me addicted to this fabulous lemoncello and I have a wee bit much.....


Here's an adorable photo of the happy couple enjoying their masterpiece!


So the night continued with us all hanging out together, chatting, becoming best friends over wine & lemoncello, & already planning the next get together. Can you feel the love? The photo includes from left to right: Jack (Lucia's husband) Lucia, Boyfriend, Amy from Ranchero Cellars, Stromy & SAM.


Suddenly, out of the blue, SAM starts a ballet where she is wrapping me in paper towels while Stormy is taking a "fashion photo shoot" of us in action. I have no idea how it started. I have no idea why it happened. But I got lost in a paper towel dream while being in a lemoncello haze (that sounds like a Beattles song.) I won't bore you with the progression of photos but I will leave you with one that I think captures the hilarious energy of the moment:


Ahhhh. Another crazy night with SAM for the history books.

So though we were all wrapping it up to say goodbye, I caught wind that Jack & Lucia were wine club members at Tablas Creek and were going to go wine tasting there in the morning before they headed home. Since Halter is right next to Tablas, I talked them into going to see me first for a tasting @ Halter, then we'd hop over in the car to go to Tablas together.

So here we are the next morning at Tablas Creek at about 11am, all of us hung over from the night before, drinking Tannat. I wouldn't have had it any other way.


A big thanks to Lucia & Jack for creating the Women Winemaker's website and giving us a fabulous excuse for all of us to get together. I'm so excited to see how this grows for Lucia, and am also excited to see our local Women Winemaker group take flight! Ms. Lucia: I wish you nothing but the best and can't wait to see you & Jack for the upcoming celebratory Women Winemakers Website Launch Party!