Yearly Archives: 2010

WBC-or-Bust: Wine Predator Throws Hat Into Ring for Trip to WA Wine Country!

I’m signed up.

Signed up to what?

Compete in the WBC-or-BUST contest.

The what?

The WBC-or-Bust Contest!

Yeah, right!

No –Write! Write about Washington wines! Live it up! Be driven around to various top-notch wineries from Seattle to Walla Walla! Be wined AND dined! Stay in a way cool B&B along the way!

See the badge there on the sidebar? That means I’m official!

Well, can I go?

Only if you sign up and follow these “Rules & Guidelines”!

TO ENTER If you don’t already have one, create a free WineCHATr.com blogger account. Choose a “WBC-or-BUST” badge/banner from your WineCHATr.com account manager. Add the badge source code to your blog website, so that it is visible from any page.

Warning: This is a pain in the neck. But if I can do it, you can do it. They have a few badges to choose from. I like this one the best.

TO QUALIFY Once the WBC-or-BUST badge has been properly added to your blog website, simply blog about Washington wine throughout the span of the contest. No less than one Washington wine post must be published to remain eligible.

I don’t think this one will count, do you?

TO WIN 12 winning bloggers will be named at the conclusion of the campaign. Four (4) winners will be selected at random out of all qualifying participants. Two (2) winners will be chosen for posting the most Washington wine related blog entries (minimum of 150 words required for each post). Six (6) additional winners will be chosen for the best category based posting:

  • Top 2 Best Washington winery posts
  • Top 2 Best Washington wine or tasting note posts
  • Best Washington growing region post
  • Best Washington vineyard post

The huh? The final four winners will be selected at random out of all qualifying participants? Random? Can you see me scratching my head? Maybe 2 random and 2 because the writing overall was good or the person showed lots of potential or had proven her worth by blogging like a mad dog at other conferences?

Oh and FYI This post has 700 words if we count the title, well over the required number of 150 words per post. Since I tend to write posts of 750-1000 words, do you think I should break them into parts in order to be more competitive? Or add lots of extra words to my sentences?

A few more words in the fine print:

* Your blog has to have been started before the end of October 2009 (no problem there–I started this blog August 2008 and started psoting regularly October 2008; my main blog, Art Predator, I started November 2007).
* Washington bloggers/residents can’t compete (I’m definitely a Californian!)
* You have to have a ticket to WBC 10 (and those are selling out fast! I’m applying for a scholarship, but if that doesn’t come through, Reno is saving me a spot.)
* You have to make a 1 minute video and post it to you-tube and leave a link in your blog Just kidding! But here’s mine anyway! Just insert Washington Wine whenever I say M-G. I’m an equal opportunity blogger (within reason!)

Below are more details about this amazing opportunity. Check it out and you’ll see why I want to be on that bus or bust!

ROAD TO WALLA WALLA: June 23rd – 25th

DAY 1: Seattle & Woodinville Wine Country
WBC-or-BUST Preview - Day 1 Experience some of the best Washington has to offer from one of the premier food & wine destinations in the Northwest. {view itinerary}

DAY 2: Yakima Valley & Walla Walla
WBC-or-BUST Preview - Day 1 Travel across the Cascade Mountain Range to visit Washington’s premier growing regions and taste through a selection of premium wines. {view itinerary}

DAY 3: Start of the Wine Bloggers Conference
Arrive to Walla Walla in style just in time for the WBC with a deeper understanding of Washington and its thriving wine industry.

So here goes! Until this contest ends at the end of April, there will definitely be a Washington Wine slant to this blog. It’s gonna be a blast! And maybe I’ll get to blast off in June to my next wine adventure–in Washington!

Now to find my notes from the WA wines I tasted at WBC…they’re here somewhere!

Wine Blogging Wednesday #67 asks us to pair a red wine with a white wine drinker

What’s up for Wine Blogging Wednesday for March?

Joe, at 1WineDude.com, hosts Wine Blogging Wednesday #67 with a theme of Seeing Red For the First Time. Here’s the link to his blog to read his complete announcement.

Joe’s prompts us to “pick a red wine that you would use to introduce a white wine drinker to red wines for the first time.  Think of a person that only ever drinks white wine, and answer the question: What Red Wine would I use to convince that white-wine-only person that they should also drink reds?

“You can go as crazy as you like in your choices,” writes Joe.  “ANY still red wine is eligible.”

Participate by posting a comment to 1WineDude.com on or before March 24. Include the link to your review.

Joe’s prompt riled up reader Kevin who commented:

Dude, Pouring more red down the throats of white wine drinkers is like throwing a match on a forest fire, what’s the point and who will notice? I get sooo many knee jerk “I don’t drink white wine” whinges at tastings there is a greater good to be served. Expand consumers exposure to quality whites and the whole wine experience will be better for it. Tougher row to hoe but sooo much more satisfying. Saying that, very cool picture though.

I have no idea yet what I’m going to write about but I certainly don’t think it’s a lost cause to offer the right red wine to a white wine drinker. Maybe something from a tasting last Sunday up in Santa Barbara County? Something from the NZ tasting last week? Maybe inspiration will come from the bottling at Old Creek Ranch Winery this Sunday? Maybe this weekend I’ll spend a little time in the cellar or rummage through the empty bottles and notes I’ve been saving to write about?

What I should do, obviously, is choose a Washington red wine so I’ll have one more post up for the WBC-or-Bust competition. But that’s hard to do when I don’t know their wines very well.

Because what I really think this takes is knowing the white wine drinker. What kind of white wines a person likes will tip us off to what reds he or she might like…That’s what I’m going to be contemplating over the next week.

PS Happy St Patrick’s Day! I may have wine with my corned beef but what I’m really looking forward to is a black and tan and something Irish that starts with a “w”!

Portugal: bike paths lined with poetry & wine so good it rarely leaves the country

“The river of my village doesn’t make you think about anything.
When you’re at its bank you’re only at its bank.”

“The Tejo has big boats
And there navigates in it still,
For those who see what’s not there in everything,
The memory of fleets.”

Lines from “O Guardador de Rebanhos” by Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (written under his pseudonym, Alberto Caeiro) Image of the Tejo And Lisbon Aquarium by Gwendolyn Alley.

Last fall, I wrote an essay for a contest to travel to Portugal to taste wine in the Alentejo Region and to write about it. I came in as runner-up but when winner Sonadora of the blog Wannabe Wino canceled a few days before, trip sponsor Enoforum Wines invited me to go in her stead and accompany their publicist Jo Diaz of Wine Blog fame; Sonadora went in January 2010 and posted extensively while there.

(In addition to traveling and tasting in the Alentejo Region,  I was also able to attend the European Wine Bloggers Conference. Read more about the contest and my entry: October 26, 2009 I’m a WINNER! Wine Predator to Attend European Wine Bloggers Conference & Enoforum Oct 30-Nov. 5!.)

Traveling in Portugal–exploring the scenic castles, discovering the delicious, flavorful cuisine, tasting the nicely balanced wines–was delightful and I jotted down as many of those experiences as possible and posted them as quickly as possible on my blog: I just didn’t sleep since my days were filled from dawn to well after dark! (I kept telling Jo, “we can sleep when we’re dead!”) Read about our whirlwind travels here.

I thought it would be easy to write about Portugal when I came home. I had lots of ideas for blog posts. But writing more deeply about Portugal and my experiences there proved problematic.

Writing about how and why Portugal impacted me and changed me is hard because my brief time in Portugal had a profound impact on me–and that surprised me. There are a number of reasons but one is that I had no idea that the Portuguese had such a reverence for two of the most important aspects of life to me: the land and literature. A bonus is they love to walk and ride bikes!

To write about Portugal is to try to express the importance of taking care of the land and expressing a love of life through the written word, through literature. Literature lives in the hearts of the Portuguese people–lit is not just a class they have to get through, literature and writers truly are revered by the Portuguese. Poets, playwrights, writers of all stripes are respected in a way I had never seen before–certainly not how we’re treated here in the US!

Likewise, living “green” and practicing sustainability is the way of life in Portugal. People who live and thrive in one place for so many generations learn this in order to survive there and not run out of natural resources. According to my host Delfim Costa of Enoforum Wines, unlike other European countries, Portugal’s priority was not colonizing. Instead they established a series of ports so they could keep exploring–and then return home again (and drink wine!)

Writing about Portugal in a way that honors it and really shows people why it is special is more difficult than I thought.

After our adventures in Alentejo, where we stayed in a castle with this view of the Roman Aquaduct, saw how closely people live to the land,  and enjoyed numerous meals of Portuguese cuisine paired with fabulous, affordable wines (most are under $20 US, around $10 in Portugal), Delfim drove us to Lisboa. We had a little time on our hands to explore and since our hotel was located on the waterfront near the Aquarium  that’s where we walked.

Inside the spacious aquarium, the best one I’ve ever seen or could imagine, instead of only interpretive text, the Portuguese chose to post on the walls marine-oriented poetry in English and in Portuguese.

Outside the Aquarium, we enjoyed walking along by the shore, the site of the 1990 Europian Exposition. Stalls which housed exhibits about various countries now were home to different restaurants featuring ethnic cuisines. The evening weather was mild and we saw plenty of people strolling and riding bicycles.

Our last very full day in Portugal was spent in Lisboa and the Palace at Sintra; our last dinner was in a restaurant featuring fado singers (Delfim interpreted the lyrics)  and incredible food. I would have enjoyed several days in each and I lapped up every moment: we even convinced the guard at Sintra to let us in after closing. I would have raced up the stone steps to the top if I wasn’t so concerned that Delfim and Jo would be worried.

We walked along the shores of the Tejo which greets the Atlantic near Lisboa and we saw under construction broad bike and pedestrian paths displaying roadways. As a cyclist, I was thrilled to see that Lisboa was making this move; I also knew that Lisboa recently hosted an Aeolian Ride (more Lisbon Aeolian ride photos here by Jessica Findley; I also plan to do a post about the Aeolian Ride there and in Santa Barbara in October). What better way to know a place than by traveling the countryside tasting wine and eating traditional meals or by getting out of a car to walk or cycle?

While I never did get a chance to go for a bike ride, the importance tot he Portuguese of language, of poetry, and of staying connected to the land resonated within me.

On our last morning, we went  to the Jeronimos Monastery and saw the tomb of the famed Portuguese poet Luis de Camoes (1525-1580) who led quite an adventurous life, traveled to India and China by ship, and more which enriches his epic poem The Lusiads about Vasco de Gama on the voyage that ultimately connected Europe to India. He is such an important figure to the Portuguese that his birthday is Portugal Day and quotes from his work are commonly and prominently placed on decorative edifices in Portugal. Read one of Luis Camoes poems here.

Because Enoforum Wines recognizes that a wine is more than the grapes, that it includes the poetry of the people who make the wine and live on the land, Delfim bought me a copy of the epic poem The Lusiads as well as a collection by Fernando Pessoa.

The following words by Pessoa grace the now open pedestrian and bicycle path. Watch a video of Portugal’s Poetic Paths here:

“The river of my village doesn’t make you think about anything.
When you’re at its bank you’re only at its bank.”

“Through the Tejo you go to the World.
Beyond the Tejo is America
And the fortune you encounter there.
Nobody ever thinks about what’s beyond
The river of my village.”

“The Tejo runs down from Spain
And the Tejo goes into the sea in Portugal.
Everybody knows that.
But not many people know the river of my village
And where it comes from
And where it’s going.
And so, because it belongs to less people,
The river of my village is freer and greater.”

“The Tejo has big boats
And there navigates in it still,
For those who see what’s not there in everything,
The memory of fleets.”

“The Tejo is more beautiful than the river that flows through my village,
But the Tejo isn’t more beautiful than the river that flows through my village,
Because the Tejo isn’t the river that flows through my village.”

Read more about Portugal’s poetry lined paths http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/portugals-new-bike-paths-are-filled-with-poetry-video.php.

Portugal offers so much more than port! Beautiful landscapes, an extensive literary tradition, stunning castles, amazing food, bicycle paths lined with poetry, and more! Yes, more Portugal posts coming up!

How To Bag Wine Drinking Millenials: Crazy Bear’s Approach vs Randall Grahm’s

Above is the back label copy for Crazy Bear’s Charbono-Nay wine which is trying to bag the Millenial Market.

Below is how Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm responded to Mutineer Magazine’s question:  “What do you want millennials to know about your wine?”

“A lot,” answered Grahm.

One, wine is alive. Wine has an intelligence. Wine changes. Wine needs time to develop and you need time to understand it. Don’t make the judgment in a second.  Don’t think you understand the wine in a second. Be patient. Spend time. Invest time. The average person doesn’t grasp the distinction, doesn’t understand that there are wines that are made through industrial process, that are very dependable, very standardized. You’re not going to have this variation from year to year, but they’re confections, and then there are other wines that are more artisanal, maybe they’re flawed, but there’s something more authentic and real about them…honest.

Read more at Mutineer Magazine:
http://www.mutineermagazine.com/blog/randall-grahm/

(Confections! What a wonderful word to describe that process. I knew exactly what he meant.)

Learn about Crazy Bear Wine’s approach to bagging Millenials here. The writing here is a marvel as well. In a different way.

PS And instead of sandals, I’ll be sure to wear my Ugg boots with my Patagucci skirt this summer should I get a chance to bag me some #crazybear.

Sauvignon Blanc Live Twitter Tasting Thursday March 4

Rick Bakas from St. Supery is at it again! A few weeks ago, he organized a live twitter tasting about California Cabernets. Tomorrow, March 4 from 5-7pm, he’s hosting a Sauvignon Blanc tasting. All you need to do to participate is taste and tweet about Sauvignon Blanc wine. If you use the hashtag, #sauvblanc, then other participants will be able to track what you’re saying along with everyone else using, for example, tweetdeck.

He also suggest you get a few friends together and a few bottles of wine and tweet, taste, and talk your way through them. Sounds fun!

Last month, I knew exactly what I was going to be drinking: a Napa Valley Cabernet from Old Creek Ranch Winery. This time, I’m not sure–I need to rummage around and see what I have or make a run up the hill to my mom’s where I keep my wine in the cellar my grandfather built.

Maybe next live twitter tasting I’ll see if John Whitman of Old Creek Ranch or winemaker Michael Meagher would host a group of us tweeters…

If only the #sauvblanc tasting was next Thursday! I’d have so much more to write about because I am going to a HUGE New Zealand tasting with lots of great Sauv Blancs at Nobu in LA on Tuesday March 9! I hope to get a post up about some of the highlights of the tasting on Wednesday March 10.

And be on the lookout for a post about #calicabs as well as one on the two Petite Sirahs I enjoyed for my remote Dark and Delicious tasting!

WBW #66 & SHF #62: Lillypilly Noble Blend Paired with Chai Apple Galette

Here’s the truth: If I’d known how incredibly wonderful, how complex, how fascinating this Lillypilly 2002 Noble Blend was going to be, I wouldn’t have been so selfish and opened it tonight for Wine Blogging Wednesday #66, , hosted by Jennifer Hamilton, The Domestic Goddess who asked us to think about dessert FIRST. Read her blog post,  Your Tenderest Twosome.

I also wouldn’t have opened it had I known it would cost me $40 to replace it–if I could find it at all. (I do admit I have a 2006 which has a $13 price tag).

I should have suspected it would be outstanding. After all, I bought it at a Grateful Palate Imports Warehouse Sale on the advice of Dan Phillips, and just about everything I’ve had from those sales has wowed me.

This wine was the 12th and last bottle of a case that Dan Phillips, owner of the Grateful Palate, helped me pick out. I had said I wanted something sweet but not too sweet, that I liked ports but wanted something a little different, maybe something white. Dan said he knew exactly the wine for me: it wasn’t out on display, as part of the sale, so he sent Tim Coles to find a bottle for me in the back.

Tim came out with a Lillypilly 2002 Noble Blend. I don’t remember exactly how much Dan charged me for it; I do remember thinking it was a little more than I wanted to spend for a 375 ml bottle of a wine I knew nothing about except his recommendation (and at that time, I knew nothing about what his recommendation meant!) My guess is I paid around $15 because if it had been more than $20, I would have said no, and if it was less than $10 I wouldn’t have batted an eye.

But before I get more deeply into the wine, let me address some of the parameters of the prompt. Jennifer argues that while most meals end with a dessert and coffee or a dessert wine, the pairing often comes as an after thought, without as much care as the rest of the meal.

Obviously she’s never been to dinner at our house! We like dessert, we like ports, we like late harvest wines, and recently, I’ve discovered fine sherries and madeiras. Not only are we fond of dessert, but I love to bake and create simple, easy yet memorable desserts.

I was definitely up for the challenge and devoted a significant portion of my day to shopping and preparing our meal and dessert.

THE DESSERT and HOW TO MAKE A GALETTE

Although I wasn’t sure what the wine would be like, when I went to figure out my menu, I hoped it might be similar to Bonny Doon’s 2008 Vinferno, a blend of grenache blanc and rousanne, which I adore–and not just because of the name!

I suspected it would be interesting with Continue reading →

Wine Blogging Wednesday #66 Meet Sugar High Fridays

This month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday host, Jennifer Hamilton of The Domestic Goddess offers a first dual event between WBW and Sugar High Friday which has been going almost as long as WBW: 66 months vs 62.

The Domestic Goddess suggests the following theme: Your Tenderest Twosome:

“Most meals end with dessert and coffee or a glass of liqueur. The focus on the meal is long since gone, as is the wine. Guests are getting sleepy, hosts are getting antsy about the clean-up ahead of them and no one is paying attention to what they’re eating or drinking anymore. I think this is shameful. Every once in a while, dessert deserves the attention given to a main course…

The proper pairing of a sugary confection with a good wine is a difficult thing to maneuver. I have seen it done a few times in restaurants, once or twice at dinner parties and maybe done it once myself – and I almost certainly managed it by accident. Do you go sweeter with the wine than the dessert or match it? Do you go red or white or ice? Do you try to harmonize regions or go completely off the map (so to speak) with your choice…?

Shf_logo You have the chance to decide all this and more for yourself this month with the first ever joint SHF-WBW Dessert-Wine Pairing Event! All bloggers (food, wine or otherwise) are welcome to participate. Post your entry on Wednesday, February 24.”

So what will I taste and write about? You know I love my ports…and I just received a bottle of Twisted Oak Pig Stai in a recent wine shipment. And then there’s that bottle of Kachina Port on the shelf that I got at the Wine Bloggers Conference. But I have a few other ideas up my sleeve…like a 2002 or a 2006 Lillypilly Noble Blend from AUS which I picked up at Grateful Palate Warehouse sales on the advice of owner Dan Phillips and would be a new wine and a new winery for me. Or I could go with a familiar and local winery, Old Creek Ranch Winery, and try their ice wine, a typed of wine I’ve never had before.

So what will I be in the mood for? Something familiar? or something brand new? Guess now I need to do some research in the dessert department to figure out what I want to pair with what!

Thanks, Jennifer, for offering us a challenge!