Category: General

We’re back home now and back in the regular routine. We had a fantastic time in Chicago and I think we’ll be back in the winter/spring for a preview of our Spring Release.

Saturday we slept in to rest up for the party Saturday night. Since we’d be skipping dinner we decided to load up on a big lunch. We started with a walk to Daly plaza to see some of the sculptures there. There’s a large Picasso in the center of the square that Stef wanted a picture of.

Then we walked down to the Gold Coast and landed at Carmine’s on Rush and State. This was Stefania’s Lasagna:

I had a classic New York Steak with Roasted Peppers. One of the best steaks I’ve had. A prime cut, cooked perfectly.

We had a fantastic time. Hooking up again with old friends and meeting new people. We’ve been to Chicago so often now that there were neighbors of our hosts who recognized us and we caught up with them also. Stef and I managed to try all the Zinfandels and Syrah’s at the event. The 2003 Copain Broken Leg Syrah was my favorite. In all I think we each tried about 60 wines.

The bus ride back to the hotel from the event was a chance for one last picture. Here our friend ‘Tbird’ shows off his purple tongue while lounging on another new friend from Florida. That is a bottle of wine in his hands.

The next morning we had to make a 10am flight. Luckily we were able to upgrade to first class and do some recovering in the Admirals Club at the airport. This was the view of downtown from the club. The warm cookies helped too in the recovery process and we were back at home in time to have some friends over for dinner a just a bit more wine.

We did sleep in a get a late start yesterday. Stef and I are not big breakfast eaters so we skipped anything in the morning to save up for this:

A Chicago style deep dish pizza from Gino’s East. It’s a long patient wait (45 minutes) from the time you order until it shows up, and you shouldn’t have much more eating planned for the day. We did more shopping in the afternoon getting in a few miles of walking before heading back to the hotel.

The Art Institute was open late on Friday, until 9PM. We headed over about 5:30 and spent a few hours there. There is a newly opened Modern and Contemporary wing and we checked that out. The new addition is very nice and it’s more open than the neo-classical design of the old building, with great views of the city and park.

We spent a good amount of time going through a special exhibit about wine from ancient times to modern times and the art associated with it. This is a famous piece of Greek pottery that you’ve probably seen if you have any books about wine that include a history section.

Most of our time though was spent in the Modern and Contemporary section. A good section of cubism.

Lots of abstract expressionism, including a really good selection of pieces from artist like Jackson Pollack, just before they went fully abstract, which for some reason I didn’t take a picture of, but got this one instead.

We then walked back at dusk through the park to visit the Bean.

A lot of people where trying to get angles of the bean without people in the picture, an almost impossible task, but I think the entire point of the Bean is that people interact with it. As you approach it, it actually looks like you are inside the Bean.

We finally got a little hungry again around 10:00 PM and after a drink at Catch 35, we grabbed a wedge salad from Morton’s. We got back to the room pretty late, with tired feet, another fun day in Chicago.

It was rainy and cool in the morning so Stef and I spent about an hour in the hotel gym. We had lunch at Catch 35 right next to the hotel, then headed down Michigan Ave. for some shopping. I miss Marshall Fields, but we did hit a few favorites and popped into the Apple store. I only took one picture yesterday, a day view from our room.

We had a nice get together from 5-7 and opened one of every wine we’ve made. The Pinot Noir went fast, I didn’t get any. The Uvas Creek Cabs also showed very well. We then headed off to dinner at Flemings for more tasting. We had about 12-15 1999 California Cabernet’s and a selection of other wines. Flemings set us up in a very nice private room and we had great service.

We closed the night back in our room again with about 8 of us finishing off the Cabs. I finally got into bed about 1:30. Today we’re off to the art museum and still haven’t finalized dinner plans. I’m leaning towards deep dish pizza at Gino’s.

Tonight we will be pouring our wines for friends in Chicago. Yesterday was a travel day. Not a bad one overall. There is a direct flight from San Jose to Chicago that leaves at 1:20, so we had a relaxing morning before the hell that is airports.

I’ve learned to just laugh. And point. Come on, you’ve been on the plane with this guy. There is at least one of him on every flight. It’s a mandatory FAA regulation. 4 people, 11 carry ons, 4 that will not fit into any bin. In fact I often wonder how it was all transported to the airport, it wouldn’t all fit in my car.

This went on for 14 minutes, then we sat on the runway waiting for a new departure window, since we had missed our original one. Planes need bouncers. At minute 3 of trying to get settled in, the bouncer should give a warning. At minute 5, they just fling you, and your 97 pound carry on, out the door.

The flight was ok for summer travel. Just 15 minutes of bumpy thunderstorm, 45 minutes of whining children and one baby who cried for just 217 of the 243 total minutes of the flight. Ear phones on the iPhone are a blessing.

This is why we grow great grapes in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A great sunny day, with the fog hanging just of the coast keeping things cool.

We got downtown to our hotel about 8:30. This is the view from our bedroom window.

Big thanks to Jack B. for setting up the hotel. We hurried over to the Frontera Grill for margarita’s and some fantastic food. The best way to end any travel day is with tequila.

Last year I wrote this blog about this time of the season:

http://stefaniawine.blogspot.com/2008/09/these-are-times-that-try-mens-souls.html

We’re in it again. The nets are on and done, the grapes are thinned and the work in the vineyard is done. Now we wait, and worry, and worry and wait. We’ll have a heat spell for sure before it’s over, and a threat of rain too I bet.

Now we’ll try to focus on other things and let the grapes be grapes and do what nature does with them. We’re headed to Chicago for a 5 day vacation and a big wine party this Saturday. Thursday night we’ll be pouring our wine for friends in Chicago. When we get back we will pick up the gym routine and make the final training camp push before harvest.

Right now our focus will be on getting ourselves ready for harvest. The grapes, they will take care of themselves. It’s time for us to stop being ‘helicopter parents’.

We are headed to Los Gatos tonight as one of the featured winemakers of the Santa Cruz Mountains at Restaurant James Randall.

http://www.restaurantjamesrandall.com/Upcoming_Events.html

This will be my first winemaker dinner and I’m very nervous. Excited too, and a little giddy.

I booked a table for five tonight; joining Paul and I are Kathy and Millie, and Millie’s sister Ila who is here on vacation from Colorado. When we aren’t putting her to work we treat her to good food and wines, lots and lots of them.

Last year when Ila was here she helped plant new vines at an installation in Morgan Hill. It doesn’t sound like very hard work, but let me just say this: When your day to day work lifestyle has you at a desk in front of computer, anything above and beyond an hour in the field is exhausting. I know. It took me a couple of seasons of working in the vineyards before I was able to make it past a couple of hours.

When our summer intern came to help out, Paul insisted she break for 15 minutes after each hour of work. “Sit down in the shade, consume some calories or a sport drink, and make sure you get water in you”.

I wonder if I’ll talk about that tonight…I have no idea what to say to a room full of strangers.

Well anyway, I’m looking forward to it, I think it will be a good time.

There are still some open tables available if you are interested, call to make a reservation and we’ll see you there.

Cheers!

That’s right, Hatch Chilies from New Mexico!

I bought a 25 pound box of them yesterday. Today I roasted them on the grill, put them all in the stew pot to steam for half an hour, then peeled and bagged them.
25lbs = 10 quart sized ziplock baggies.

I’m already thinking about getting another box but I won’t roast all of them again. I like to make Chile Rellenos out of this particular pepper because it has a lot of fire. As for how many scoville points these have, I’m not certain, but I can tell you after taste testing one raw, they are HOT!

I had to wiki it…here goes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale
Claims that these are somewhere around 2,500 — 8,000 Scoville Units (my error, they are units not points).

One box.

One grill.

One stew pot.

Ten one quart ziplock baggies.

Three hours out of my day…

Burning your lips off……Priceless!

This morning we drove up to Big Basin Vineyards to pick up some equipment that we had there that we won’t be using this year. Three 300 liter topping tanks and 5 barrel racks needed to come back home. I’ll probably end up selling those since we don’t have a lot of storage room and they are sitting in the garage right now. Everything went pretty smooth and just a few hours to make the run.

Stefania and I have been getting inquires and emails about the fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Dave Tong has been doing a good job on his blog of providing updates so I’ve not posted any. The fire is far from any of our vineyards and we’ve not had anything to worry about. The area burning is one of least populated in the entire mountains, and too cool to grow grapes.

S0me people have asked us about smoke so I thought I’d take a couple pictures at Big Basin this morning. Big Basin is about 6 miles from the fire lines, and at the top of a basin that would collect smoke if it was an issue. We’ve all been pretty luck in that the smoke has mostly blown out to sea. Below you can see one of the newer plantings at Big Basin and the bright blue and clear skies.

This is an older section of the vineyard. You can see a little fog still hanging in the horizon, but no smoke.

We’re very safe of course, and the day the fire started I had a good laugh at the TV coverage. There was a reporter at the fire HQ in Watsonville, about 25 miles from the fire, with her ‘fire coat’ on. When she went back to the newsroom in San Jose, the desk anchors were actually the same distance from the fire. No coats for them though.