Category Archives: road trip

Murphys Calaveras County is wine country!

Murphys Calaveras County California: think wine, not beer!

So you didn’t know that Murphy’s California is a big name in wine? Check out this article from the Los Angeles Times Travel section for more!

Although the author didn’t mention my favorite Calaveras County winery, Twisted Oak, you can see why this is a fun town to visit! Last time I was there was in 2003 when I gave a featured poetry reading hosted by Nila NorthSun. No wine tasting for me on that trip however–I was 6 months pregnant! We just visited there between skiing Badger Pass and camping in Yosemite and skiing Bear Valley and camping at Calaveras State Park– and I tasted my way through town! More to come on that soon!

In the meantime, see what the LA Times has to say: Murphys rings in St. Patrick’s Day with green wine – Los Angeles Times. which advises that “this town knows how to have a good time, with 18 wine-tasting rooms within a few blocks of one another.”

“You can literally sip wine from one end of town to the other,” says River Klass, who owns two restaurants on Main Street.

“I think Murphys is just a cool little walking, pedestrian-friendly town,” says Dorian Faught, owner of the Murphys Historic Hotel and Restaurant.

The hotel features nine rooms, each named after the famous guests who have stayed there, including Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant and Susan B. Anthony. A short walk from elm-lined Main Street is picturesque Murphys Community Park, which has a white gazebo (also with shamrocks on it) and bubbling Murphys Creek running through.

Off to a good start: Now taking a Holiday!

As you may have noticed, the Wine Predator has been MIA. Not that I haven’t been tasting wine and making notes on them to share here at a later time–because I have and I look forward to discussing an amazing languedoc imported by Vinalia from Camarillo (focusing on biodynamic and organic–more on this small importer soon!), and comparing and contrasting two wines by Australian winemaker Rolf Binder (he’s the “B” in RBJ wines which are absolutely delightful!) a 1998 Veritas WInery Barossa Valley Shiraz/Mourvedre and the Watcher shiraz!

I have been posting non-wine shenanigans on my other blog, Art Predator , quite regularly, including Santacon, plus pictures.

For New Year’s, we’re  off on a road trip to Joshua Tree National Park–and of course we’re bringing some wines with us! Will report later! Then I’ll be at Macworld–will you?

Best wishes this holiday season and into the New Year!

(WBC Post 3) Dry Creek Valley Zinfandels: the more the merrier!

Zinfandel Heaven

So there I was, in the Grand Ballroom of the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa at the Wine Bloggers Conference, surrounded by empty dinner plates, empty dessert bowls, empty wine glasses and empty wine bottles.

My stomach too was empty. But the hotel was full, full, full, as full as the bellies in the banquet room.

What’s a gal to do?

Get in a conversation with Leslie who reps the Dry Creek Valley wines, of course, and get invited back to their hospitality suite and load up on crackers, cheese, grapes, nuts, chocolate, and–most importantly for a budding wine blogger–lots and lots and lots of Dry Creek Valley ZINS!

“Bring a glass–we’re all out!” she urged.

I followed her through the swarms of wine bloggers, across the lobby, passed the bar with a funk and r&b band blaring, through the courtyard and around the pool toward a banner proclaiming “Dry Creek Valley Vineyards” or some such. Inside, two tables were laden with 2 dozen or more half full wines, and another table held the promised cheese and other munchies. Where to start first?

I set my bag with my laptop down and staring me in the face was a bottle of Mauritson 2005 Growers Reserve Zinfandel so I started there. Only 257 cases were produced of this 15.5 alc wine with plenty of fruit and zin attitude to stand up to the alcohol. Ahhh, finally, heaven, zinfandel heaven. And for a wine lover who cut her teeth on Ridge Zinfandel, it really was.

I felt positively schizophrenic, manic even, trying to decide what to do and doing everything at once: drink? eat? help them pack up? do all at the same time and stay out of the way?

It didn’t really matter though, with all those beautiful wines waiting…wines which unfortunately were getting packed up quicker than I drove up here. My day was just starting–but Leslie’s very busy day was about done!

“Here, take some,” she urged. “Taste them tonight at your leisure!”

I grabbed some bottles, more or less randomly since they all sounded great, and she threw in more: “Dutcher Creek, you have to have this. And you liked the Mauritson? You have to have this Rockpile. Oh and this Quivira, and this Red Rooster was poured at dinner, you missed that, and …”

Next thing I knew there were quite a few bottles and we were scrambling for a box to put them in, as well as packing up the food, and collecting information about all the wines and Dry Creek Valley’s various vineyards.

“Have you checked into your room?” asked Leslie as my pile of goods grew greater.

“No,” I admitted, “this was all so last minute I don’t have a reservation. I can go stay with my nephew in Berkeley if I don’t have much more to drink, or try to find some place close by.”

Next thing I knew, she was handing me a room key card!

Heaven–Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel is your name!

(WBC Post 2) Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice: how to make $100,000

WBC: Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote “How To Make $100,000 Blogging”

At the last minute I heard from organizer Allan Wright that I could get into the (busting at the seams full!) First Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, California. I arrived right in the middle of Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote address–and watched the plates get cleared, the creme brulee served, and the port poured…for everyone but me as I stood on the sidelines and drooled. No clean glasses in sight for water or wine–either one would have worked for me after the 7 hour long drive. Admittedly, Allan had warned me there might not be a seat at a table or food for me, but my goodness, I did expect to find a glass of wine while I listened to Gary’s enthusiastic address!

While some of the conference was devoted exclusively to wine, quite a few of the ideas transport easily to other on-line communities, and I will focus on those ideas here.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk’s claims to fame are broad and bold–at least in the world of blogging, and especially wine blogging. His bio on his site says:

On February 21, 2006, Gary launched Wine Library TV (WLTV), a free daily video blog in which Gary tastes and reviews wines.  Gary made television appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Ellen Degeneres Show, and he has garnered widespread media recognition including features by the LA Times and Washington Post. In February and March of 2008, Gary became increasingly known throughout the Web 2.0 community. His remarks on branding within the social media landscape at FOWA, Strategic Profits, and South By Southwest occasioned praise from established web denizens including Kathy Sierra and earned the admiration of countless bloggers and aspiring entrepreneurs. Gary even made headlines with an impromptu free wine party during South by Southwest.

At the Wine Bloggers Conference, Gary suggests that

10-20% of our time as bloggers should be spent building community.

That means visiting other bloggers and leaving comments etc. Where to find the time? a winemaker asked. Stop looking at your stats, he joked, and cut back more on sleep, he said not kidding.

Now I don’t imagine that winemaker spends much time on the naval gazing phenomena of so-called “stats analysis” (at least that’s how I justify my time there!) We all have the same challenge of figuring out how to prioritize the amount of time in the day we are each allotted–24 hours, no way of cheating on that.

In order to have a healthy developing, growing blog with more and more readers, he argued, we must participate in our communities.

And we must blog regularly–at least once every day. As I reported in an earlier post, he asked how many blog. Of the 200 or so people there, about 160-180 people raised their hands. When he asked how many post daily, with daily defined as 5 days a week, only about 10 hands were raised, with my hand one of them. I try to post every day, and to have almost as many posts as there are days in a month. I have found the more often I post, the more traffic I get, and I’ve been able to develop an audience of both new and regular readers and 30,500 page views over this, my first year of blogging (my first blogoversary is election day!)

People perked up quite a bit when he talked about monetizing blogs.

Any wine blogger can make six figures in ad revenue in 2009, claims Gary Vaynerchuk.

Note that he didn’t say EVERY wine blogger can make six figures in 2009. Note that he didn’t say it would be easy. It’s not easy. It’s a lot of work making $100,000 a year blogging–the drinking of wine may be a breeze but selling advertising is not. He suggests bloggers make cold calls or cold emails and sell ads on their sites.

If a potential client doesn’t get social media, then move on–don’t bother arguing with someone who is going to get left behind. Instead find those who do get social media, and cultivate that relationship. Many people in all industries are misspending their marketing budgets, using pre-web 2.0 models. It is up to us to figure out ways to sell space and pimp ads on our sites, and in the process, change the way the world does business.

Blogging is the greenest way to advertise.

Important questions for any blogger to consider include:

  • what’s your goal with your blog?

  • what do you want out of it?

  • global or regional?

  • how can I mix it up?

  • what’s my “real” job?

  • how can I kick ass and create cool shit?

Next up: Adventures with Dry Creek Valley Zins and what to do when alone in a roomful of New Zealnd wines? Scoop them up! (Let’s hope I don’t get in too much trouble for revealing these secrets from the First Wine Bloggers Conference!)

(WBC Post 1) Wine Predator Drinks Up 1st Wine Bloggers Conference

Wine Predator Drinks Up 1st Wine Bloggers Conference

I’m drinking an iced coffee on a warm sunny day in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, from the lobby of the Flamingo Hotel, host of the First Wine Bloggers Conference and watching cases of wine roll by which they are opening rapidy as they set up for the next tasting of Sonoma wines.

Wine bloggers wander around a bit dazed; the women all seem to be drinking coffee as we all gear up for more wine! I seem to be the only person publicly bloggging; maybe people are in their rooms writing but I doubt it. Last night when Gary Vaynerchuk gave the keynote, he asked how many people in the room have a blog and most of them raised their hands–probably 150 of the 180 people in the room. But when he asked how often people post, only 10 of us post 5 or more times a week. (And yes, I was one of the 10!)

Since I drove in last night (in the new wonderful soon to be written up car!), I have tasted 10 or so Zinfandels from the Dry Creek Valley,  tasted a half dozen wines from New Zealand, walked through the organic and biodynamic winery Quivera with the winemaker Steve Cantor,  enjoyed an incredible lunch of local foods and venison navy bean soup and Quivera wines, and followed by two breakout sessions. My head swims with wine and wine words.

Adventures and details to follow soon–after I taste some more Sonoma County wines! After that, we have dinner tonight at Sebastiani with keynote speaker Alice Feiring author The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization which I recently devoured and can’t recommend highly enough!

Am having a fantabulous time–wish you were here!

P.S. Since they ran out of nametags, I get to wear my Lettre Sauvage letterpress beautiful card around my neck!!

A New Path to the Waterfall & trout for breakfast

Day 10: trout for breakfast

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Footsteps on the gravel in our campsite wake me.

THWACK! Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

It is 6:37am. We are at the BLM’s Tuttle Creek Campground a few miles and a thousand feet or so up from Lone Pine toward Mt Whitney Portal. Last night when we climbed into bed, it was raining and windy. Naked, listening to the rain on the roof of the van, looking out at the stars, smelling the wet sagebrush, hearing the creek nearby, full belly content after a wonderful meal at the Still Life Cafe in Independence, we realized we’d forgotten to pay the $5 for the campsite.

Which explains the THWACK–a ticket most likely lay under our windshield wiper. Continue reading →

Tsharke Only Son 2005 Tempranillo & The Still Life Cafe

Day 9: Flash floods, Still Life Cafe, last bottle of Aussie wine

While a flashflood watch was in effect when we were fishing in the eastern Sierra south of Bishop, turns out it was a deluge the previous night which closed Highway 395 just north of Independence, and slowed traffic to an escorted crawl.

Even though this flashflood was 24 hours old, only one of four lanes on 395 was open and the thick mud, black with soot from last year’s fires, surrounded us; plentiful water flowed and had yet to run clear. Continue reading →