Easter celebrations come big and small. My husband’s family is preparing lamb, ham, ribs, and tri-tip–and at least a dozen sides and desserts. It’s hard to know what wines to bring!
Here are some wine ideas for your Easter celebrations, whether they be small ones with just you and a friend or big ones with lots of people–like the one I’m going to with all the clergy and most of the congregation of the local Greek Orthodox church!
Just as Easter is celebrated around the world, the wines I talk about below come from near and far. They include a California Sparkler with salmon, two french wines (a gamay and a Bordeaux rose) with ham, and a Spanish Rioja with lamb.
I’ve been eco-minded since I was small. My first memories are of the sand between my toes, the smell of damp earth under the house, and the joy of being one with a tree or a rock when climbing it. I’m a Girl Scout First Class, I backpacked from Mexico to Canada, and I have a BA from UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies plus graduate classes in conservation biology. I’ve hooted for spotted owls, surveyed for goshawks, hacked peregrine falcons, and preserved burrowing owl habitat.
These days, I spend as much time as possible in the outdoors, camping, traveling, and enjoying fine food and wine! Here we are in Zion recently on top of Angel’s Landing–then enjoying a meal with a bottle of Barolo at the campground.
So, yes I have some serious “green” cred: I’ve been celebrating Earth Day since before it was invented. Caring about how wine is made and how “green” wine is came “naturally” to me–I also grew up running around my grandfather’s cellar!
Like many, I assumed that wine is “natural.” As I’ve learned more about wine over the past few years, I’ve been appalled at how manipulated wine is and disgusted by some of the green washing that goes on in the wine industry.
So I do my best to navigate my way to purchase wines that are more green on the sustainability spectrum and produced as naturally as possible. And here on this blog, I try my best to call attention to “green” wines and “green” wine practices to support them.
This afternoon, my friend David Rodriguez is visiting from Puerto Rico–we met in Santa Rosa CA at the first Wine Bloggers Conference in 2008. He’s a world traveling wine blogger with a particular interest in wines that are made in traditional, “natural” ways that are sustainable and gentle to the earth. I look forward to learning from him about some of his recent finds –and tasting some of these wines also since many of them he is storing in my grandfather’s cellar!
Here are five choices you can make to green your wine–whether you prefer red or white! Happy Earth Day! Continue reading →
The weather this weekend should be glorious for a stroll to discover the delights of downtown Oxnard California at Sunday’s Wine & Art Trail from 1-5pm. Tickets are $50 and benefit the Boys & Girls Club Afterschool Music Program. Your ticket enters you into a raffle and gives you an event glass.
Let wine and art help you recover from the stresses of tax season and get a jump on your donations for this year! Enjoy fine local wines and delicious appetizers while browsing through unique artist exhibits at locations around downtown Oxnard. Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Oxnard, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Oxnard, and Port Hueneme’s Young Professionals Network, the 3rd Annual Wine & Art Trail will feature wines from the Ventura County Wine Trail.
Ventura County winemakers may not grow many of their own grapes but they’re certainly making some fine wines with the grapes they’re getting from places like Lodi (Cantara Cellars) and Santa Barbara AVAs (Vino V, Old Creek Ranch, Ojai Vineyards). Rancho Ventavo is soucing wine from several areas and even has a tasting room right in Heritage Square in downtown Oxnard where Sunday’s adventure begins. The Wine and Art Trail is an easy way to experience some of the wonderful wines that Ventura County has to offer these days.
Participating Artists include: Brianna Bainbridge, Rolando Camarena, Anna Karakalou, Paulo Ruvalcaba, Andrea Vargas and Jose Zuniga.
Please check out and vote for my “Take Your Rubber Chicken to Work Week” entry over at the Twisted Oak Winery Blog: http://www.twistedoak.com/tyrctww2011 Voting ends tomorrow, Monday April 11, 2011!
Twisted Oak’s “Take Your Rubber Chicken To Work Week” photo contest ends today! Here are the rules: 1. Get a rubber chicken if you don’t have one. We got ours at Twisted Oak; it’s an original. You can tell by its Twisted Oak choker. You can also tell our chicken likes raves by the collection of friendship bracelets. 2. Take it to work. And to lunch! 3. Take a funny picture. We tried. Beverly said writing poetry is serious business. 4. Email it to … Read More
Twisted Oak’s “Take Your Rubber Chicken To Work Week” photo contest ends today! Here are the rules:
1. Get a rubber chicken if you don’t have one.
We got ours at Twisted Oak; it’s an original. You can tell by its Twisted Oak choker. You can also tell our chicken likes raves by the collection of friendship bracelets.
2. Take it to work.
And to lunch!
3. Take a funny picture.
We tried. Beverly said writing poetry is serious business.
4. Email it to tastingroomATtwistedoakDOTcom BY March 30th. That’s today!
For Take Your Rubber Chicken to Work Week, Danika and I decided to take my son’s rubber chicken to our “Message in a Bottle: Ocean to Ojai” writing workshops.
Our rubber chicken learned a lot about poetry, wine, and local natural history. We thought our rubber chicken was named Murgatroyd but we discovered that was a favorite saying (and Twisted Oak wine) not a name: Beverly is actually the name of our rubber chicken.
Among many adventures, we took photos of Beverly learning how to do writing practice, write a pantoum, and taste wine with Vino V and Old Creek Ranch Winery winemaker Michael Meagher (pictured with Beverly). Beverly also enjoyed chai at Farmer in the Cook in Meiner’s Oaks and performed in an open mic at Big Buddha Lounge. Here’s a picture of Beverly with Big Buddha Lounge’s Davis Far.
Beverly also starred in a few youtube videos; I’ll post links when they go up sometime tonight.
So by my accounting, there’s quite a few of us who took a rubber chicken to work: Danika and Joan, the gals at Paradise Pantry, Michael Meagher, and Davis Far. I can only hope you will split your Master Cluck Bucks for Twisted Oak wine with me, your photographer and friendly neighborhood blogger.
Last week, I wrote a lot during writing workshops all day Thursday at Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center and at Old Creek Ranch Winery then on Saturday at Danika Dinsmore’s Poetry BootCamp.
And I even wrote about wine–wine poetry, believe it or not!
So I will be posting some of my wine and winery inspired poems as well as a few by others from our writing workshop starting with these tasting “notes” about Old Creek Ranch’s Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ll also be posting a few more “traditional” notes about the wines we tasted and the pairings we enjoyed.
You spice me like a vanilla bean
musky, husky, rich
You rock me like a granite dome
round and rough
You roll me like a romp in the hay
the hills and the land in you
You sing to me like Tom Waits
gravely and true
You wear on me like a gold watch
classic, reliable, dependable
You rub me like an old leather saddle
smooth and soft
You kick me like a soccer ball
on a wild open field
You stroke me like a tiger’s tongue
and I’m coming back for more
Okay, it may not be one of my best poems but it was a fun way to describe the wine using various prompts to get from the common descriptors to more unusual ones! Stay tuned or subscribe for more!
PS Better catch this luscious wine while you can since this is the last vintage of it they plan to make! (Instead, watch for a 2007 Nebbiolo from Stolpman Vineyard and some other new wines!)
Easter celebrations come big and small. My husband’s family is preparing lamb, ham, ribs, and tri-tip–and at least a dozen sides and desserts. It’s hard to know what wines to bring!
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 