I went to the cellar and what did I see?
Bianchi Zen Zinfandel staring at me!
Glaymond Zinfandel also I see:
Barossa Valley 2003!
I was tempted by Rusden 2003
but 2 zins from 2 continents
seemed enough
the hubby’s lamb
on the grill
tender not tough!
Rhyming pomes
just aren’t my thing
but these zinfandels inspire
trying to make it all ring
I give up–I may be a poet but I am not into rhyming! Tomorrow I’ll get up a more serious post about the wines I’m tasting for Global #zinfandel day. In the meantime, check out my twitter feed.
How do you plan to celebrate Global Zinfandel Day, Friday November 19, 2010 from midnight to midnight?
All you have to do is open a bottle of zin and enjoy it! I tell you, I am such a zin fan I’m ready to pop a cork at midnight and begin tweeting! (After all, I cut my wine “teeth” working at Ridge!)
If you want to get social, use the #Zinfandel hashtag to connect with other zin lovers on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, blogs, etc. You can also search the hash tag on social sites to see what others are drinking and read what they’re saying allowing you to connect and chat with other Zin drinkers around the world.
Knowing that I am a huge zin fan (and a fan of well made HUGE zins), they had sent me the following–a bottle of Bianchi Zin (as well as a bottle of Petite Sirah!) and an invitation to meet Bianchi Winery’s winemaker Tom Lane (who, they claim) offers “a savory blend of quirky humor, mixed with deep passion and winemaking insights.”
As I’m considering how to celebrate Global #Zinfandel Day this Friday November 19, I’m wondering if maybe it’s time to sample that bottle of Bianchi Zin.
Winemaker Tom Lane certainly has the credentials–with “countless accolades and medals under his belt after more than 25 years of winemaking.” Tom graduated from UC Davis and began his professional winemaking career at Navarro Vineyards then he joined Concannon Vineyard where “Tom helped the winery earn hundreds of accolades, including Wine and Spirits Magazine Winery of the Year in 1995 and 1997.” Tom’s also received a Dan Berger Winemaker of the Year, 1997 and Jerry Mead’s Winemaker of the Year in 1996.
Since driving from the Ventura area to Bianchi by myself to taste wine and hang out with Tom would be MUCH more fun to do with others, tell me in the comments why I should choose YOU to go with me! Bonus points for people who blog and tweet regularly about wine. Bonus points if you like The Write Alley on facebook! More bonus points if you’re a subscriber to this blog! And if you tweet this (be sure to mention Art Predator!), you are definitely in the running.
This opportunity is open to as many people as I can fit into my car!
Last weekend, for my son’s 7th birthday, we invited everyone he and we could think of to join us at Sycamore Cove State Beach campground for a camp out and birthday party.
So what wine did I bring to go along with bugs and hot dogs?
You might be surprised to discover I brought Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel–a wine in a box.
Now before you turn up your nose, hear me out.
We do a LOT of camping. We go to Burning Man. We gather with friends for BBQs at the beach. We go off road for hours and hours on end to get to a remote campsite or hot spring. We are SERIOUS campers.
And I am serious about wine as well–even when I’m camping! After all, that’s when we really eat well and we have time to relax and enjoy ourselves, the view, the evening air…For proof, Continue reading →
We love Halloween around here! We love pumpkin bread and pumpkin soup and even Smashing Pumpkins Ale! We put pumpkin in our pancakes and waffles regularly–not just at Halloween.
So when a friend of mine sent me this recipe a month ago for a pumpkin soup, I knew we’d be having it during this Halloween season. She also suggested that I pair it with a merlot, Continue reading →
Instead of going to the European Wine Bloggers Conference this year in Vienna, I put those plans on hold when I was nominated and then selected for a makeover and to speak at this year’s Women’s Conference in Long Beach.
Preparing for this event kept me very busy! I apologize for neglecting this blog and promise to get back to it! I have some great wines I am looking forward to reviewing–and I’m going to talk about glasses, too!
So what have I been doing? After getting the house ready for filming the “before” section, going down to Hollywood for a fitting and more filming, finding a theme song, and more, I went to work on taking advantage of the opportunity to be in front of as many as 10,000 women–and being listed as speaker at such an important conference! (Read about preparing for the conference here.)
In the past few weeks, I prepared and published a limited edition of a poetry collection (a regular edition will be released by en theos press December 2010), and I worked with graphic artists and printers to have new business cards and bookmarks to promote my book and my business, The Write Alley Coaching and Writing Strategies.
Read more about my makeover here:
Today was the BIG DAY, the day of the Style Network “How Do I Look” show’s big reveal of myself and three other women at the Women’s Conference in Long Beach, California. It was also the “Day of Transformation and Healing” at the Women’s Conference with lots of amazing speakers including Deepak Chopra and Tony Robbins. Unfortunately, I was only able to get a very small taste of the conference. (More on that in a later blog post; a blog post from … Read More
Tonight we celebrated the release of my new poetry collection, Middle of the Night Poems from Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son from en theos press–and we chose champagne, of course!
Actually, Grandin, to be precise, is a French sparkler NOT from Champagne but from the Loire Valley. I picked up at a tasting at a local restaurant featuring wines from the Henry Group and others. I paid around $20 for it and found it a refreshing change from the typical supermarket sparklers which most of us more commonly enjoy. It offers fine bubbles and lots of complexity–not sweet or fruity, but nutty (almond and hazelnut) with lots of acid (lime? lemon?), spice, and yeast.
We had the Grandin with a dinner of fresh shrimp right off the boat, simply prepared in butter and garlic, with pasta, and I have to admit that it was gone before I realized I lacked sufficient wine notes to say much about it except that, given the opportunity, I would absolutely buy it again.
Read more about Middle of the Night Poems from Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son from en theos press, the poetry collection we were celebrating, below. By the way, this is NOT a collection of poetry about wine…but poetry by someone who LOVES wine!
Just in time for the Women’s Conference in Long Beach on Monday, I have 108 signed limited edition copies of my new poetry book, Middle of the Night Poems From Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son (en theos press). I also put my “chop” on it: a special jade stamp the traditional red wax with my name in Chinese. The signed limited edition published for the Women’s Conference will be available at the Devone Designs Perfect Fit Jewelry display in the … Read More
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 