Last spring I enrolled in a 14 week Women’s Economic Ventures Self-Employment Training class and wrote a business plan for “The Write Alley Coaching and Writing Strategies.” As a writing coach, I work with small businesses owned by women, artists, and wineries on writing and using social media tools; I am available to provide content as well.
The day I signed up, my husband broke his C2. With help from my family and friends, I graduated with honors, served as class speaker AND I nursed my husband to a full recovery. I was ready to get in the swing of business and blogging when I was offered two summer school classes which started the same week as the Wine Blogger’s Conference–the equivalent of working time and a half. How could I say no to a paycheck like that after being on unemployment while my husband was on disability for four months? As the term neared the close, my mother, one of my coaches, and someone I was going to be coaching on developing a blog and publishing a series of books, died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Because of the challenges I faced this past year, WEV nominated me to the Women’s Conference to speak and get a makeover.
And yesterday I was selected for this amazing opportunity. Learn more below.
I don’t think of myself as the auditioning for a reality show type of person. Yet that’s what I found myself doing nearly three weeks ago when I was nominated by Tea Silvestre of Women’s Economic Ventures for a makeover by the Style Network show “How Do I Look?” hosted by Jeannie Mai. The big “reveal” is slated to be held on the Main Stage of the Women’s Conference as part of the Day of Transformation and Healing with Maria Shriver interviewing t … Read More
The annual Black Rock Arts Festival aka Burning Man is currently a huge happening out in the Nevada Desert northeast of Reno.
And that’s where I’d like to be this Wine Wednesday, tasting and talking wine at the Black Rock Wine Cellar centrally located on the Esplanade and 7:30 near center camp.It would also be a super fun place to participate in tomorrow’s Cabernet Day organized by Rick Bakas.
Welcome to the Black Rock Wine Cellar, the premier provider of refrigerated wine storage to the citizens of Black Rock City! Established in 2008 by the Golden Cafe, the Black Rock Wine Cellar and its subterranean wine storage facility exist for one week each year, during the Burning Man arts festival. The unrelenting heat and dessicating air of the Black Rock Desert is no place for wine! If you have a special bottle in need of tender loving care, we invite you visit us on the playa and speak to our sommelier.
There is no fee for storage, and you need not share the sweet nectar with us, although we will likely be proud to share some of our own favorite bottles with you. Our unique service is made possible through monetary donations to support the storage, transport, and operation of our refrigeration infrastructure, as well as donations of exotic breads and cheeses to sustain our dedicated staff of wine snobs. Most importantly, if you have experience in excavation or masonry, we need you on our construction team!
Curious to learn more about Burning Man? I attended my first Burn in 1992, I’ve written a lot about Burning Man over at Art Predator.
When I heard about the benefit concert for VCCool Saturday, August 28th at Zanzilla (2750 East Main Street, Ventura), I offered to contact Frei Brothers Winery to see whether they would donate wine for the event.
Why Frei Brothers? Because VCCool works on issues of sustainablity for people and planet, including bicycle safety, local food policy, natural building, sustainable community planning, and so much more. VCCOOL is a global warming or climate change activist group. They promote ways to reduce your carbon footprint and they organize events like the bike rodeo. VCCOOL Members live consciously and purchase food, wine and products that are produced sustainably. The VCCOOL fund raising concert will offer traditional, old time good time music and room to dance for $20. Members are making treats and there will be non-alcoholic drinks as well as wine pours for $5 each from Frei Brothers.
And so why Frei Brothers? Because at the Wine Blogger’s Conference 2009 in Santa Rosa CA, I tasted the Frei Brothers syrah (yum!) and learned about their pro-environment policies. For a rather large organization (200,000 cases), Frei is trying its best to be good to the land that the brothers have been responsible for for for over 100 years.
Frei Brothers is driven by an “overriding principle to conduct business in a manner that will protect and preserve the environment.” This includes exceeding government regulations and setting aside an acre of land for every one planted with vines to protect the natural environment in which indigenous animals live. This blog post by Rob Bralow includes an interview with Chief Viticulturist Jim Collins discussing specifics. Not to mention that Frei makes great wine; just to make sure, I tested out a glass of the chardonnay last night–nice and balanced, it will be a pleaser today chilled down!
So enjoy Frei Brothers Reserve Wine while mingling with friends new and old, and getting down with the music of: The Jug or Nots (jug band), the Rachel Morris Little Big Band ( original works including “Earth Day” and “White Trash Boy”), and Mule Skynner (classic rock). The VCCool Benefit concert is held in yoga studio of Zan Ferris who graciously donated her gorgeous space for this event. This hidden oasis and the music too, can be found below Smart and Final off Main. Directions
Frei Brothers generously donated four cases (two syrah, one chardonnay, and one cabernet) so there will wine for an upcoming pro-arts and cycling event also Sept 3 at Art City. Thank You Frei Brothers, for doing right by the land and for your donation!
I was working on this piece in the week before my mother died last month…I never got a chance to share it with her.
I was raised in Ventura where I grew fruits and vegetables in our backyard under the tutelage of my father, Kenney Lawrence. Later, I was my grandfather’s eyes and his hands when he could no longer work his land up above Cemetary Park.
My grandfather, Manny Paquette, was a challenging taskmaster and so difficult to please that my mother, Suzanne Lawrence, didn’t want me to take the job. He knew exactly how he wanted everything done, he was a perfectionist, he grew up in the famous Shepherd’s Gardens in Ventura, and he had been working that earth for 50 years.
After my first week, my grandfather told me I worked hard, and more importantly, I worked smart. He liked how I listened, how I followed his directions, and that I asked good questions. He appreciated how I gingerly handled the seeds he had germinated, how I climbed deep into his fruit trees as he used to. The thoughtful way I pruned them pleased him also.
I paid attention to him and to the land, listening to it and loving it the way he did. I did what I was asked but also could tell him about the red tailed hawk, the quail, where the roadrunner roosted. I could describe for him the texture of the soil, the air, the chamise on the warm afternoons. As I worked his land, I understood it and him.
My grandfather always enjoyed wine and wanted to make his own, but he never did. He grew grapes but not enough to do anything with them. It was more of a dream.
When he hand built his house on the hill, the first item of business was digging a hole into the hillside. This was the 1950’s and his neighbors were sure it was a bomb shelter. Instead, it was a wine cellar. He carved by hand a massive door out of redwood and entered it into the Ventura County Fair: he won a first place prize.
When he passed away in 1997, I inherited his cookbooks, his wine making books, his wines, and his cellar. But I’d already inherited his sense of smell, his love of fine food and decent coffee, his interest in wine.
I never got a chance to show her either video…and a lot more, of course. We were finally going to start transforming her extensive research and writing into a blog followed by a book.
While my mom wasn’t a wine drinker, she had a wine cellar which she loved and which I tended. For the past 18 years or so she lived in the house my grandfather built, complete with a wine cellar snuggled into the hillside. For 14 years, my mother took care of her parents who daily celebrated “wine-thirty”–I didn’t have to worry about my grandparents drinking my wine–by that stage in life, my grandpa was fine with inexpensive jug wine which they had with cheese and crackers every afternoon as they enjoyed the ever-changing view from their hillside home.
My mother enjoyed the view, also, and she lived there another six years. As often as possible, I would come up to say hello, at times bringing a friend to enjoy the view and a bottle of wine from the cellar. We would also come up for special dinners like Christmas eve, marked for me with a trip down into the wine cellar. Other times, I’d call to say I was running up to get wine.
Even though we never shared a bottle of wine together, we shared a cellar. Continue reading →
When Jo Diaz of Juicy Tales aka Wine Blog Org told me I was runner-up for her contest to win a trip to Portugal with her as the guest of Enoforum Wines, I felt great. Then when winner Sonadora aka Wanna Be Wino had to cancel at the last minute, within days, before I could even catch my breath from jumping around with excitement, I was on a plane to Portugal.
Although we had each attended the North American Wine Bloggers Conferences in Santa Rosa, Jo and I didn’t know each other. But once in Portugal, we came to know each other well. As we explored the castles and countryside, the wineries and the vineyards, she kept catching me and taking photographs of me in the craziest spots taking photographs or the view. She warned me that she was going to do a slide show blog post “Where’s Gwendolyn?” taken after the “Where’s Waldo?” books.
I didn’t know that she was going to feature my blog in her “Wine Blogs Worth Celebrating” and use that opportunity to present a video of her photos of me in Portugal!
Gwendolyn Alley, of Wine Predator and Art Predator, was my traveling companion to the European Wine Bloggers Conference and to visit Enoforum Wines in Portugal last fall. We shared nine days of our lives together… strangers in a strange land (only as it relates to the United States). She’s continued to reflect on our experiences. And, I don’t know anyone else who throws his or her entire body into taking photographs the way Gwendolyn does. She’s always writing about her passions of art and wine, and has a unique skill that I always enjoy.
Wow, huh! And I’m in great company: Jo’s list included
Joe (and Amy!) Power from Houston who I met on the WBC or Bust bus last month; they’re great generous people who write Another Wine Blog
At the Wine Blogger’s Conference last month in Walla Walla, Catavino (aka Ryan and Gabriella Opaz) invited me to sit for an interview with documentary film maker and photographer Zev Robinson. He’s doing a film on the Wine Bloggers Conferences with a focus on European WBC organizers Gabriella and Ryan Opaz and Catavino. They wanted me to discuss my experiences at the three North American Wine Bloggers Conferences as well as the European one.
So although I knew I might miss some of the final tasting of the conference, the one that paired 10 tidbits with various wines, we took that time for an interview where I spoke honestly and passionately. I compared the conferences I’d attended and discussed the wine blogging community in general. Some of what I had to say I knew when I said it might be controversial. I come to wine writing from a career in academia and journalism, and that shapes my perceptions and experiences. I come to wine blogging from being active in online poetry writing communities which obsessively debates similar topics: how to guide people to find the “real” deal, the wine writers or poets who really know something about the topic.
Watch the video to get my opinion on that controversial topic! This is just a teaser! He plans to do more shooting at the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Vienna in October where he’ll get some video with the always outspoken and provocative Ken Payton of the blog Reign of Terroir.
Anybody got a spare plane ticket to Europe by the way? I’d really like to go to Vienna to this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference there!
When I heard about the benefit concert for VCCool Saturday, August 28th
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 