Yearly Archives: 2011

Happy 99th Birthday, Julia Child! Celebrate with some wine with dinner tonight!

Today, August 15, 2011 would have been Julia Child’s 99th birthday. To honor Julia, and her various accomplishments,  wine writer and educator Rosina Wilson suggests we all make this “Drink Wine with Dinner” day. And I certainly applaud that idea!  According to Rosina,

 “For decades, Julia Child showed America how natural and enjoyable it is to drink wine with dinner. What better reasons could there be for creating a day of joy and feasting ~ in Julia’s honor, and on her birthday!”

“Until now,” Rosina said in a press release, “there has been no official celebration to bring wine to the table. “Drink Wine With Dinner” Day will unite like-minded people throughout the world who love wine, love food, and love how much each can enhance the other.”

 How can YOU take part in  “Drink Wine With Dinner” Day? It’s easy!

No special fancy menu. You don’t have to make anything French or from a Julia Child recipe. Rosina assures us that “it doesn’t matter *what* you plan, as long as it involves wine, food, and people. It can be an upscale dinner at a restaurant or winery, with a different wine for each course. Or it can be a down-home backyard barbecue with friends, and a favorite value-priced bottle or two.”

Since my husband came home with ground turkey so we could grill up some burgers, and since I LOVE zinfandel with turkey and turkey burgers (with creamed blue cheese, arugula, and heirloom tomatoes plus corn on the cob!), I pulled a bottle of 2007 Eberle from the cellar; it’s 50%from  Steinbeck and 50% Wine-Bush (and 100% Paso Robles!) At 15.9%, it’s a little big for a midweek wine; we’ll have to pace ourselves and stick to one glass–each! I just opened it to write a bit about it so it’s still a bit closed but it’s still a classic zinfandel full of brambly fruit character going on–lots of blackberry on the nose, some raspberry,a little rose petal, and it explodes with sweet fruit on the palate with a nice berry and caramel finish. With that high alcohol, you’ll want to keep this wine cool, possibly even chilling it. Plastic cork (shame!). Retail:  $24 at the winery.

Looking for an inexpensive zin to pick up at the grocery store next time you’re getting the ingredients for turkey burgers? How about organic Bonterra, around $10? We had it the other night and it reminded me how much I love zinfandel’s spicey, brambley nature. Or try sustainable Redwood Creek, under $10. I had some last fall with turkey burgers and I was really pleased with the wine for the price; it was so wonderful with the turkey that we had the same wine and meal two nights in a row! For that summer BBQ at the beach with a bunch of people, check out Old Vine Zin in The Big Green Box; it’s really good and you don’t have to worry about spills or what to do with open bottles of wine! (Note the Redwood Creek and Big Green Box wines I received as samples, but if they weren’t worth drinking at their price point, I wouldn’t tell you about them!)

Rosina invites everyone to take part in “Drink Wine With Dinner” Day on or around August 15th. To publicize *your* plans, simply email Rosina ~ at RosinaWilson.com@gmail.com ~ with details about your event or menu. If you include wine-friendly recipes, Rosina will credit you.

“Each of us is spreading the word about “Drink Wine With Dinner” Day in our own way, with a big ripple effect,” Rosina comments. “I like to think of it as a semi-planned, semi-spontaneous, international ‘flash mob’ of food and wine lovers, springing up on August 15th and celebrating “Drink Wine With Dinner” Day in dozens, hundreds, or thousands of locales around the planet. Mainstream America deserves to know the pleasures of wine with dinner. And it’s finally time for us to catch up with the rest of the world!”

Learn more about  “Drink Wine With Dinner” Day at Rosina’s site. http://RosinaWilson.com

Dianne Jacob at WordCamp SF 2011: how to have a killer food blog

So last night I was at Meteor’s new release party in Napa. (More on that later–wow a night! What wines! Pictured is the tree where we watched the meteors and the moon and enjoyed desserts!)

And today? I’m at WordCampSF 2011 in San Francisco listening to Dianne Jacob, food blogger, and a blogging coach for food bloggers.

And I’m blogging about it here for you because I know many of my wine readers are also very interested in food. Personally, it’s all about the food AND the wine together that makes big magic for me!)

Dianne Jacob promises the share the 10 things you need to know to become a well-known food blogger including how to write a recipe, how to become part of the community, get comments, take food photos, etc. She’ll show examples of WordPress food blogs and explain why they succeed. (Who’s Dianne Jacob? Scroll down to the bottom!)

1. Tell moving stories around food.

Tell good stories like David Leibovitz. Tell a story period! Otherwise people don’t care–about you, your brand, your blog. Your recipe is only a recipe, information. Tell a story.

2. Shoot gorgeous photos.

Check out Delicious Days to see some examples. Crop your photos. Use repeated patterns. Study art and use the techniques of the great artists. Your iPhone may not do the job. (Speaking of, I better take a shot of Dianne! And I wish I had some pictures of those amazing sliders from last night at Meteor…the food was so wonderful! Yum! Okay, back to Dianne…)

3. Learn how to style food.

Avoid shadows–use white poster board to reflect the light.

It’s not enough to be a great writer to have a successful food blog–you have to also offer great photography.

4. Take process photos. Continue reading →

Octavin Sauv Blanc Goes to See the Beach Boys at Ventura County Fair’s Seaside Park

Last night we decided to take a picnic to to see the Beach Boys at the Ventura County Fair’s Seaside Park Grandstand.

(Actually, the Beach Boys were playing at the Fair inside the Fairgrounds–we planned to watch from the beach outside the Fairgrounds as you can see from the accompanying photo!)

We packed up a dinner of Trader Joe’s beet and chicken salad (supplemented with more greens, tomatoes from our garden and pine nuts), TJs chicken wine country salad, pita bread, humous, home made pasta salad with roasted vegetables, carrot sticks and sharp cheddar cheese.

Snooth.com  has claimed August as “Pinot Grigio” month with this site snooth.com/GTI (and a new wine to spotlight each month in the works), I thought we’d start celebrating with a sample of a 2010 Italian Pinot Grigio, Attems, that I thought would be a good match with the chicken. I pulled the plastic cork as we were packing up, tasting it to make sure it was good and to take a few tasting notes on it for a blog post. Mmn, good! Melon…honeysuckle…tropical fruit…rich…nice!

But when I went to pack it in my pannier with the rest of the picnic and our plastic GoVino glasses, I wondered if I was making the right choice. Was the glass bottle going to break or spill? I probably shouldn’t have opened it first. I thought about how there were going to be four adults–was there going to be enough?

I opened the refrigerator and there was a Silver Birch New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Octavin sample sitting there in the fridge where my husband put it when it arrived the other day.

Hmmn, I thought to myself–I wonder if this Octavin wine is good enough to bring to share with friends, one who has a discerning palate? It’s certainly portable. It wouldn’t get knocked over and spilled. There would be plenty–the box holds the equivalent of four bottles. But was it heavy? Actually, no–and the size is quite compact.

I opened it by pushing in the cardboard, pulling out the nozzle, giving it a twist and out came the wine in a squirt. It certainly had familiar New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc characteristics: very pale in color, lots of bright citrus (grapefruit, lemon, lime) in the nose, fresh and crisp on the palate (can you say citrus and green apple?), almost sharp, with a clean finish and 13% alcohol. There isn’t a whole lot of complexity here but that’s okay! This is a picnic at a concert! You can find it just about anywhere in its distinctive turquoise 8 sided box for around $20. (I know–it’s amazing how inexpensive good wine can be when it’s not in an expensive bottle!)

So that’s how a box of Octavin NZ Sauvignon Blanc got into my pannier while the pinot grigio went in the fridge for another day! Off we rode on our bikes along the beach path to see the Beach Boys at the Ventura County Fair’s Seaside Park Grandstand where it pleased my friends (if not my husband–he’s a bigger pinot grigio fan than a sauv blanc fan!)

Since all four of us last night who tasted it are long time Burners, the Octavin Sauv Blanc will definitely go on my list of recommended wines for Burning Man! More reviews of wines for Burning Man to follow!  You can see that the Octavin is right at home on the bumper of a rental truck!

As much fun as our picnic was last night, tonight we’ve got a chicken roasting on the barbeque and we’re staying home for dinner–we’ve got a date with that bottle of Attems pinot grigio! (Review soon!) Then we’re riding our bikes over to the Fairgrounds with some other Burner friends and their kids to watch REO Speedwagon at 7:30pm.

Yep, that’s us–we just roll with the changes! For the full line-up and the skinny on fair entertainment, read on…

The Ventura County Fair every year offers “free” Grandstand Entertainment with your $12 paid admission to the Fair! But even better, if you’ve had your fill of the fair and you don’t want to pay $12 just for the “free” entertainment, you can ride your bike along the beach bike trail and find a spot where you can hear the concert and even watch it on the jumbotron which is wh … Read More

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It’s a Croft Pink Port & a Pinot Noir Smackdown Thurs. August 18, 2011

I’m not sure which invitation came first–the one for a Thirsty Girl twitter tasting of Croft’s Pink Port or to participate in the Pinot Noir Smackdown.

After all, I was on the road all of July and into August doing research for my wine and family and sustainability project. I could barely get service for my phone much less wireless for my computer!

I do know that I said yes to both, of course–and at some point I realized I had two wine dates for the same night! Yes, both the Croft Pink Port twitter tasting AND the Pinot Noir Smackdown twitter tasting are being held on August 18, 2010. Woe is me!

Now I have to admit this won’t be the first time I’ve juggled two dates–you know, going out with one earlier then another later. I didn’t make a practice of it but it did happen a time or two. Or three.

So juggling two wines dates should be easy, right? Right! And you’re welcome to join the fun! (I’ll get to how in a minute!)

My first date is with a few bottles of California pinot noir: 2009 Sonoma Coast Vineyards Freestone Hills, 2009 Windsor Sonoma Russian River Valley  and 2010 Windsor Vineyards Pinot Noir, Sonoma County courtesy of Ed Thralls who describes the event in this way: Continue reading →

My Whirlwind Tour of Oregon Pinot Noir

How did I get from Idaho and Walla Walla back to California for the Petite Sirah Symposium? By way of some Oregon Pinot Noir of course!

Read on to get a taste and see where I went and what I did; more in depth blog posts to come about my stops in Willamette Valley AVAs including Barrel Fence in the Dundee Hills (pictured) and Coleman Vineyards in the McMinnville AVA (photos below).

After a Whirlwind Tour of Oregon Pinot Noir, Back in California for Petite Sirah! When I last checked in from my road trip, I had arrived on the coast of Oregon following a few days in the Walla Walla AVA (American Viticultural Area) and around Boise (the Snake River AVA)…  Read More

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PS I Love You: Let me count the ways!

This is part 2 of a 2 part series. Here’s Part 1: a-few-petite-sirahs-from-the-ps-i-love-you-symposium-tasting

It is unfortunate but true that people are typically unfamiliar with the marvels of Petite Sirah. Hence the need for a Petite Sirah advocacy group like PS I Love You and for events like Dark & Delicious.

I’m fortunate that I was turned on to Petite Sirah back in my days working at Ridge and that I put a bottle of Storrs PS away in the cellar and forgot about it for 10 years which allowed me to taste the beauty that PS can become.

I’m also grateful that I’ve been able to whet my palate and taste a lot of PS wine in the past six months, thanks to invitations from Jo Diaz to attend Dark and Delicious as well as the PS Symposium.

I hope that these notes will encourage YOU to go out and try out a Petite Sirah or two for yourself! And while you’re at it, pick up a bottle or two to lay down in the cellar for 10 years or so!

Here are the rest of the wineries represented at the Petite Sirah Symposium tasting Tuesday July 26 along with notes about some of them. Sorry I couldn’t taste, take notes, and write about them all!

  • Diamond Ridge Vineyards ~ Lake County
    Winemaker Clark Smith aka Grape Crafter (pictured) gave one of the PS Symposium’s enology presentations where he discussed the impact of various barrels–French, Hungarian, American, and neutral– on the same Petite Sirah and at the tasting, he provided us with samples of the various wines he made. Personally, I really liked the one in the Hungarian Oak–this was a no fooling around, leather and chains with some blueberry pie thrown in version of PS.  He also did a French oak that tasted familiar, and American oak which was a bit on the sweet side with a lot of vanilla and not as much fruit. Lake County is above the fog line but cooling lake breezes keep the grapes from cooking.
  • Don Sebastiani & Sons ~ Sonoma
    This Petite Sirah was the standout wine for me in a twitter tasting of The Crusher recent releases. In one of the tweets, I said it was  “like the vampire that takes you in the night!” The California State Fair Wine Competition gave it a double gold/Best of Class award. Continue reading →

Petite Sirahs From The PS I Love You Symposium Tasting: Part 1Wineries A-C

I usually avoid writing the kind of blog post that just lists a bunch of wines.

I like to tell stories.

And I think story telling is my strength.

But sometimes it is necessary to just resort to a few keys words to convey a story about wine when you’re trying to talk about many wines.

In this case, many bottles of wine–but they’re all Petite Sirah.

I am trying to remember if I’ve ever been to a tasting of one varietal like this other than Dark & Delicious which is also Petite Sirah and I’m scratching my head. I’ve been to New Zealand new release tastings where there was mostly sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir…but that wasn’t the point of the tasting.

I went away from Tuesday’s PS I Love You Petite Sirah symposium and tasting flabbergasted at how different these wines can be based on terroir and wine maker style and vintage and more. To suss out terroir a bit more, instead of organizing the tasting alphabetically, I’d love to attend a Petite Sirah tasting organized by AVA!

So here are the links to many of the participating Petite Sirah wineries, most of whom belong to PS I Love You, the Petite Sirah industry advocacy group organized by Jo Diaz, with a few of my notes from the wineries alphabetically from A-C. Continue reading →