Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.-Benjamin Franklin

Conversation with a coworker who lives about a mile from us.

Coworker: When the weather was nice a couple weekends ago we went out to the wineries and had a picnic.

Me: Wineries?

Coworker: Yeah, you know out Jefferson. (The street we both live off of)

Me: There are Wineries out Jefferson? How far?

Coworker: About 15 minutes. So anyway we were having a picnic and...

Me: Wait, you're telling me there are wineries 15 minutes from my house?

Coworker: Yeah. We we're...

Me: 15 minutes away... there are wineries?

So guess what we did this weekend. We were originally looking for Bogle, which you may be familiar with (You can get their wine in most grocery and drug stores, very fancy I know). On the way we found The Old Sugar Mill.

Inside are several tasting rooms for various wineries (I'm guessing small ones). They we're having an event with food and tango demonstrations. And it was all in this amazing old building. It looks like they're renovating the rest of it and I can't wait to see what goes in there.

We only tasted in one room because it was pretty crowded and a little awkward getting around the people doing the tango. But I bet on a regular weekend it would be great. We did enjoy the wine and Fiona was a big fan of the salt water fish tank.

It WAS an awfully cool tank with all kinds of anemones and ummm other cool plant like fish things growing in it. Fiona thought the two clown fish we're Nemo and Nemo's dad but was confused by the lack of Dori.

The outside of the building had about 5,000,000 places to take cool pictures.

On our way to Bogle we went through the actual town (village, hamlet?) of Clarksburg. It was eensy tiny and had a lot of boarded up buildings. But we saw this cool old fire engine and decided we needed to stop.

We eventually made it to Bogle. We bought a couple bottles and Fiona found her favorite thing for the day. His name is Sylvester and he is ubermellow.

I didn't know Dave was taking my picture. I was smiling at Fiona trying to reattach some sticks she found on the ground to the tree she thought they'd fallen from

So in summation, there are wineries 15 minutes from my house.

A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover.-Clifton Paul Fadiman

At the grocery store

Fiona: Oooooh I like that bottle. Can I have that drink Mama?

Me: No. Just because it has a cool bottle doesn't mean it tastes good. That's important advice for when you take up wine drinking.

Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.-W.C. Fields

We bought this nifty wine bottle cork holder when we went wine tasting a couple months ago. I just thought it was kinda cool and it matches a small wine rack we have in the kitchen.

The only problem is every time I put a cork in there I feel like I'm putting it in cork jail. And what did the poor corks ever do to me?

I see they spent my grandfather's gold well.- Secondhand Lions

We went wine tasting a couple weekends ago. Fiona was surprisingly well behaved considering this isn't really a kid friendly activity. Here are Fiona and I on the spot where Dave proposed to me. No I'm not pregnant, that shirt is just less flattering than I realised, also I swear my hair looked better that that when we left the house. Okay here is the point of this post. Is it just me or does that pond seem a leeetle small for that boat?

Have you seen Secondhand Lions? It's a pretty good movie and this picture totally reminds me of the ending.

Look, I'm not an intellectual - I just take pictures.-Helmut Newton

I got a new phone. I kinda had to, the old one had no battery life left and we don't have a land line right now. The new one does all kinds of fancy schmancy things that I'll probably get bored with in a week and just use it like a phone. However until then I'm having fun playing with the retro camera app. These were taken with the pinhole camera setting. Cool hu?

I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others.-Diogenes the Cynic

For no reason our office had a little party with wine and cheese. I was expecting a bunch of mediocre wine so I was surprised when the first thing I saw was one of my favorites. Oh look and a bottle from Lake Sonoma winery, they don't exist any more but that's where Dave and I got married. Oh how funny and a bottle from this tiny little place Dave likes in Amadore......

That's when I remembered that the former office manager who doesn't drink always brought Dave or I with her to help pick wine for office events. They we're cleaning out the stock in preparation for our office moving.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm

I went to get my lunch out of the fridge at work and noticed a half empty bottle of wine. Who is drinking wine at work and why aren't they sharing?

Wine For The Cheap

Do you drink wine? Are you broke all the time? Well I do and I am (btw the second is not because of the first). Over the years I've seen lots of cool wine labels that made me want to buy the wine but once I looked at the price (say $4.50) I said to myself, "I think I'll pass". I'm not sure why so many cheap wines have labels that I find attractive but there you go. The fact of the matter is there is a lot of terrible wine out there and most of it is cheap but sometimes you find something pretty good that's just inexpensive because no one has ever heard of it. A while back I found a site called Wine For The Cheap where they do humorous reviews of wines under $10. What I like is they are not all snooty making you feel like you don't know anything about wine. As a matter of fact I'm not sure if they know anything about wine but their reviews are humorous (even if you don't drink wine) and they make me want to try something new. Check 'em out if you've got a moment.

Proper Wine & Food Pairing

Me Thinking:

Mmmm this wine is tasty.

Tashty.

Hmm I'm slurring my thoughts.

Oh wait dinner, I should eat dinner.

What to go with this lovely Fume Blanc?

Ahh fish sticks perfect.

White wine with fish right?

Off to the Opera

Tonight I'm going to the Opera with my sister in law (AK). She's going to pick me up from work and then we're going to have a nice dinner before going to the show. AK teased me that I should take advantage of having a designated driver. So if you hear on the news that some lady at the San Francisco opera threw her panties at the stage, held up a lighter, and screamed, "Freebird!" You'll know that was me.

One of Those Days

I'm gonna go home and chug a bottle of wine then open another one.

An excelent point. I second the motion.

http://www.slate.com/id/2191912/

Wine

It's Friday and I'm looking forward to having a glass of wine tonight after we put the baby to sleep. Maybe we'll even have a couple glasses. In my younger days I drank a lot of cocktails and I still enjoy one now and then but in the last several years I've become almost exclusively a wine drinker. Before we had Fiona we usually had a couple bottles of wine every weekend (more if my brothers in law and their wives were with us). Obviously we got out of the habit while I was pregnant but now I really appreciate an occasional glass all the more.

I love to go wine tasting and as a native I've got strong opinions where to go. Napa is of coarse famous for wine producing and most tourists also spend some time in Sonoma but in my opinion the best place to go wine tasting is Amador (in the foothills near Sacramento). Napa and Sonoma are both beautiful and have some very nice wines. I particularly like the Dry Creek area of Sonoma in fact Dave and I got married at a winery there (Lake Sonoma Winery, unfortunately since closed). What we (Dave too) really like about Amador county is the variety of wines available. The area in known for Zinfandel but they also have Barbera, Barberescu (sp?), Mouvedra, Primo Tivo, and other Italian varietals. Most of the wineries are quite small and generally don't charge a tasting fee. Being in the foothills there are also some spectacular views, Story winery in particular (Dave proposed to me there) has a truly breath taking view. If you enjoy wine and are going to be in the area I fully recommend spending some time there. I'm looking forward to taking a trip up to Amador soon myself.

I was amused to find out recently that (according to baby names world) in Latin Fiona means wine. Yep we're such drunks we named our kid after wine. Sweet perhaps we can name the next one Absynthe.