Monthly Archives: July 2018

On The Trail With OTWC and Pacific Crest Wines

When I got the pitch to sample these three wines from the Oregron Trail Wine Company and the Pacific Crest Wine Company, I had to say yes!

Because not only do I LOVE hiking and camping, I’m a backpacker.

In fact, I’m one of the first 20 women to complete 2600 mile long Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada!

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French #RoseAllDay with Grilled Cheese Gourmet for #Winophiles

I don’t know about you, but this has certainly been a summer for #ROSEALLDAY around here!

  1. We’ve had a massive heat wave in SoCal– rose is cool and refreshing.
  2. We’ve loved rose with so many foods because both “white wine foods” and red wine foods” can go with it.
  3. We’ve been buying up every rose we find.
  4. We’ve received samples of rose from France and other parts of the globe.
  5. In June for Rose Day, we wrote about six from California– lots of great info about rose in this post!
  6. Also in June for International Rose Day, we wrote about four from Provence, France paired with seafood pasta.
  7. Early in July, we wrote about Chiaretto, a rose from northern Italy paired with gourmet mini-pizzas.
  8. Today we’re writing about four more Rose from various regions in France.
  9. Believe it or not, there’s another Rose Day scheduled for August 14! We have more rose from Spain, Italy, and South Africa for that day!

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Under the Radar Regions: Ventura County says Ghost Wineries Be Gone!

a selection of wines from grapes grown in Ventura County by several Ventura County wineries

Until December 2017’s Thomas Fire struck Ventura County with a vengeance making it the largest fire in California’s history, most people didn’t know where Ventura County was. I’d tell people we were located north of Los Angeles and south of Santa Barbara — two well known regions, and one of them, Santa Barbara, very well known for wine.

But Ventura County has a long history of flowers, seeds, citrus and more agricultural abundance — including wine grapes.

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The Key to Italian Rose? Chiaretto!

Chiaretto? What’s that? Sue and I figured we’d just pass up this month’s Italian Food Wine Travel Chiaretto prompt — it’s summer, we’re busy, we’re traveling, we’ve got big projects going at home, and what is Chiaretto anyway?

But we got an offer we couldn’t refuse: samples! So we looked at our calendars, and committed to it — still with NO IDEA what we were in for but figuring it was something red.

That’s because even though Sue’s family is from Italy, we don’t speak a whole lot of Italian. Continue reading →