It’s probably illegal if not simply immoral to transport Washington wine to Santa Barbara’s wine region. But that’s what we did last weekend.
Here we were, camping less than 20 miles away from Los Olivos out on Paradise Road, and we weren’t even bringing local wine. But so far no one from Santa Barbara has put up a wine blogging contest offering tours and tastings, wining and dining and accommodations like Washington has with WBC-or-Bust which is keeping me and my blog (and my taste buds!) focused on Washington wine.
So when we went camping with a large group of friends with young children, instead of doing a locapour wine with our mostly locavore fare, I brought a bottle of Reserve Hogue 2006 Cabernet Sauvigon recommended by my friend Tim Cabrera to have on Friday night with our New York steaks ($20 from the Ventura Wine Co). And I brought a bottle of a 2008 Hogue Columbia Valley Chardonnay for Saturday’s nights deep fried turkey and artichokes (under $10 at Trader Joe’s).
So far so good in the Washington wine department: I’ve been able to find a number of wines at my local grocery store for around $10 on sale that I can enjoy on a weeknight with dinner, I’m well on my way to Washington itself because I won a Wine Bloggers Scholarship, and here’s another post to hopefuly earn me a spot on the WBC-or-Bust bus! Continue reading →
Back in late March, a bunch of us tasted merlot one evening and tweeted about it. Like a few hundred people. Posting a few thousand tweets. From all our various living rooms. And tasting rooms. And who knows where all else.
I have to admit I contributed more than 20 of those tweets about Washington merlot, specifically three Washington merlot: 2007 Red Diamond ($7 at Trader Joe’s), 2006 Columbia Crest Estates ($7.99 at Trader Joe’s, and Columbia Crest H3 (on sale at the grocery store for $12) which I paired with a seared ahi on a bed of field greens with rice wine vinegar and sesame oil, a peanut sauce tofu stirfry, and take-out mu shu pork. I was particularly curious about the mu-shu pork match after reading this suggestion on a website that suggested Asian food with Washington merlot.
You can go see yourself by scrolling through my twitter feed but my tweets went something like this: Continue reading →
Today is Wednesday, Wine Blogging Wednesday, so last night I prepared for my task of “Got Gamay?” by opening up a bottle which is readily available to most consumers. Wondering what I am talking about? (Cue up Sonny and Cher singing a variation of “I Got You, Babe” as “I Got Gamay, Babe!”)
“Drink What You Like” hosts April’s Wine Blogging Wednesday 68 – Got Gamay? where wine bloggers from around the world taste and blog on a common theme each month (thanks to Lenn Thompson of New York Cork Report who started the monthly event over five years ago!) The host writes, “Gamay is unfortunately best know as the grape that produces Beaujolais Nouveau, popularized by George Duboeuf.”
Since we also had a pork tenderloin planned for dinner, possibly stuffed with canned plums (yum!), I thought I’d double check around the web and see what people had to say about this pairing where I found this article on various chefs’ wine pairings with pork tenderloin.While each chef had a different wine to suggest depending on the presentation of the pork, I found one chef who appreciates beaujolais with the “other” white meat: Continue reading →
Over the weekend, I heard good news and bad: the bad news was that I was on the waiting list for a scholarship to this year’s Wine Blogging Conference in Walla Walla Washington.
The good news was that I was on the waiting list for the Wine Blogger’s Conference Scholarship–and if enough money came into the Scholarship Fund, I’d be on my way to Washington in mid-June!!
You can imagine I was already on pins and needles waiting this past week to find out if I’d won a scholarship, and now, I’d have to wait longer! My mind raced, wondering ho I could help drum up more cash for the conference–and how far down I was on the waiting list.
I am sure you can also imagine my relief and my excitement when I checked my email during a break in my Monday night Women’s Economic Ventures class to discover I’d won!! As soon as I got home, I told my spouse and we popped the cork on the bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle Sparkling wine I had waiting for this moment! Continue reading →
The Blog “Drink What You Like” is the host for April’s Wine Blogging Wednesday 68 – Got Gamay? a virtual gathering of wine bloggers from around the world who taste and blog about a wine based on a common theme each month thanks to Lenn Thompson of New York Cork Report who started the monthly event over five years ago.
The host writes, “Selecting the topic for this month’s topic was an easy decision as I’ve developed quite a Cru Beaujolais fetish over the last couple of years.” Gamay is grown throughout the world, he points out, and adds “Gamay is unfortunately best know as the grape that produces Beaujolais Nouveau, popularized by George Duboeuf.”
Want to join us? On or before Wednesday, April 21st write about your Gamay tasting experience and post it on your blog!
So what will you drink? Unless I find a bottle of Washington Gamay, I’ve got a bottle of Louis Jadot Beaujolais right here which I found at my local grocery store and which might work to get something posted next Wednesday…but the following day, April 22, I will be attending the Delicious Wine Tour in Los Angeles and will have the opportunity to taste a lot of French wine.
I hereby declare that it will be my duty to focus on Gamay Beaujolais and report back here the most memorable Gamay they got.
And in the meantime, I’ve got a backlog of Washington wines to blog about as I sit here on pins and needles waiting to hear whether I got a scholarship to the Wine Bloggers Conference and whether they have enough money to fund me! (So if you can, please contribute!)
The. video above gives you a taste of what a Wine Bloggers Conference is like and why I am applying for a scholarship to attend this year’s conference in Walla Walla, Washington where the emphasis on tasting, tours, and education will be on Washington wines. As a Californian who lives near the Santa Barbara wine region, I have access to tasting and purchasing an abundance of excellent California wines. Being near LA, I am also invited to industry events and wine tastings and can learn about wines from other regions.
But there is nothing like a Wine Bloggers Conference to really get to know the wines of the region that is being showcased. In recent weeks, in order to learn more about Washington wines and to write about them in the hopes of winning a ride on the WBC-Or-Bust bus (see the badge on the side bar?), I’ve been trying to find and taste Washington wines and have come up woefully and surprisingly short. Trader Joe’s and Vons offer little in the way of Washington wines (they offer mostly the same ones!), and my favorite wine store, the Ventura Wine Company, carries mostly California wines with only a smattering of wines from other places, and very few from Washington. And I’m not one of those wine bloggers being bombarded with wine samples either!
Even a trip on my own to Washington wouldn’t provide me with anything close to what the Wine Bloggers Conference can do when it comes to tasting a large variety of Washington wines, getting to know the different regions and what they have to offer, meeting the wine makers, and touring the facilities.
It’s probably illegal if not simply immoral to transport Washington wine to Santa Barbara’s wine region. But that’s what we did last weekend.
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 