Welcome to our new series Blissful Days! We’re going to give you an excuse to pop open that bottle of champagne on a Tuesday night or indulge in dessert while on your “diet”. Today, we are going to celebrate Pecan Pie Day! This is a great first celebration since Judi makes a mean Pecan Pie […]
Most of the time, a “CLOSED” sign on a winery is a sad thing. Exception? When the tasting room is closed for a Members-only Party and we are members! And few release parties are more predictably fun than the ones at the Darcie Kent Winery. Their 2015 3rd Quarter release party was no exception. The […]
Before any significant wine tasting trip, we canvas our fellow wine lovers for their favorite wineries in the area. As we prepared for our “Champagne and More” wine tasting trip through the Russian River area, one winery was consistently mentioned by everyone we asked. That winery? The Merry Edwards Winery, of course. So sometimes I […]
Day two of our “Champagne and More” wine tasting tour got off to an uncharacteristically early start. Fortified by our Hampton Inn breakfast, we set off, intent on stopping in at two (at most) wineries and then checking out the Charles Schultz museum. Our first stop was described as a “can’t miss” by several well […]
My annual summer trip is over, Target is stocking their aisles with back to school supplies and there is talk on my Facebook page of Fantasy Football Leagues. This can only mean one thing: the end of summer is rapidly approaching. Before you give up completely and bust out your boots and sweatshirts, find a […]
Part of my Mother’s Day Sonoma “Champagne and More” Wine Tasting Trip was a stop at the Thomas George Estates Winery. The drive to the winery winds through beautiful woods fresh with country air (versus air that comes from living at the junction of 580 & 680), roadside blooms and birdsong. Upon our arrival, my […]
It is easy to be confused by all the grape varietal names thrown about in wineries. It probably isn’t a conspiracy, but why are the same grapes called different names and different grapes called nearly the same thing? Case in point: the big Syrah vs. Shiraz vs. Petite Sirah confusion. Jerry Seinfeld would ask, “What’s […]
Wine tasting has its fair share of ceremonies. The most obvious is the Pulling of the Cork. Corkscrews range from $1 give-aways to Rube Goldberg devices costing many hundreds of dollars. All because the act of uncorking a bottle of wine is so embedded in the pageantry of wine. But recently there is a threat […]
I love drinking wine! The beautiful colors, the complex layers of flavor, the aromas… oh, the aromas. To my surprise, the amazing wine aromas have never been captured in a perfume. That’s probably a good thing, otherwise I might never leave home. So what is it about the “nose” of wine that makes it such […]
The Russian River “Champagne and More” tasting tour was going great! We had completed fantastic tastings at Korbel Champagne Cellars, the Hartford Family Winery and Moshin Vineyards. Next, we went from gravity flow wine making to gravity defying wine making: the Gary Farrell Winery. We wound our way up a gated private drive, ever climbing until I was […]
Our Russian River adventure was in high gear! We had completed great tastings at Korbel Champagne Cellars and the Hartford Family Winery and were really enjoying the great weather with the top down. Up next? The Moshin Vineyards! The first thing we discovered was that the vineyard’s address was judged invalid by our GPS. Forced […]