Merry Christmas

Pic from ice skating in Sun Valley, Id. with Gov. Arnie and Maria Shriver (not pictured)...

There is wine a small "wine country" here in Idaho.

Arnold likes Gruner Veltliner wine. It is a white wine that comes from his homeland, Austria. Call it "groovie" for short. This varietal is widely planted in Austria and has been described as complex. I had some recently in Healdsburg and it was an easy-drinking white.

As my friend Mark asked, what's up with the bears eating the grapes in Northern Napa County? I think it was Pope Valley. I'll have to investigate the purported events as I recover from the Christmas holiday back in Napa (stuck in the Boise airport at the moment). Looking forward to new year's eve and a visit to San Jose and Ridge winery, maybe. C'mon 2006.

Holiday Pairings

I took a class on holiday food and wine pairings with Andrea Immer, she's an inspiration because she changed her life/career from Wall St. to wine. For a while, she said, she lived and entertained on popcorn paired with chardonnay which is a match she still uses today. Champagne works even better.

Different View of Napa

Got a cool view of Napa from the water, as the cellar crew got a ride on our winemaker's boat.

You can ride on the Napa river through the downtown area, I had no idea. It's all different from the road.

We were having a mini harvest celebration, as all the wine is made and next month I'll be ready to share some of the final product... with you? Maybe.

the week got better

So I had to move the wine out of the tank into another in order to recover my phone. There it was, sitting in a puddle of lees (grape mud) and dammit why didn't I take a pic of that? It was dead, soaking in a very pretty purple muck. After work that day, I realized my car keys were missing and maybe I threw them out in a huge garbage dumpster outside the winery. It wasn't that terrible digging through the trash though, my mind was really out of sorts Monday b/c I spent the previous day uncovering the fact that I spent some time out of the past year with homme d'ordures (again, dammit, wish I took a picture of the scene). Anyhoo...

Found my keys the next day sitting on a tank, not inside, and all was well after I dropped the dough on a new phone. Simplifies my Christmas shopping for this year. No gifts or cards, but I'll call you. I see this past week as making a new start, as I've trimmed down my call list and learned a couple of huge lessons. I'll not get into that too much, but I'll tell you I know who's important to me in my life and I know what I know now instead of the "I wish I knew then what I know now." I know it NOW.

It finally happened

I dropped my cell phone into a 3,000 gallon tank of red wine today. Hello, I ain't got your number no more.