May 25, 2010
Let’s see… time spent with good friends, in warm weather with delicious wine? Check. Pretty sure that’s a recipe for a perfect weekend day. Matt and I spent Saturday at the Salute NC Wine Festival with friends – Mike, Anne, Locke, Crystal, Donna, Kim and Crick. I’m not sure we tasted everything there but we definitely put a good effort forth. I’m totally shocked to report that my absolute favorite wine was the Cellar 4201 Sangiovese. Yes, moi, who pretty much only started drinking, nay tasting, red wines a month ago. It seems like white wines from NC are just super sweet. I’m a fan of semi-sweet wines, for sure, but I don’t want a sugar buzz along with my vino buzz. Other faves were the Raffaldini Fiore, Divine Llama Chardonnel and McRitchie Sparking Niagara.
After our (sugar) buzz, we headed to dinner at Downtown Thai. Afterwards we headed across the street to a new bar. It’s called Tate’s Craft Cocktails… I guess craft means hand-made and hand-made means really, really, REALLY slow service? I’d give ‘em a 2nd chance, since apparently they have just opened, but it took an hour and a half for 8 of us to have one round of drinks.
And then we stood in a street and danced to an 80s cover band and I thought about how much I adore life in this city with our wonderful friends, the end.
March 31, 2010
The sun rises on Jimtown Cottage. Next door, a rooster crows. (Seriously.) And we are all tucked in our snuggly, warm beds, while visions of zinfandels danced in our head.
No, wait. Scratch that. We were all lying awake staring at the clock since about 4 am, still on East Coast time.
By 6 am, we had all gathered in the living room, lamenting over the lack of coffee and decided to pile into our mini-van for a Starbucks/Grocery store run. With a little advanced planning (and some crazy Excel spreadsheets), we divided and conquered the grocery store. Groceries for 3 dinners, 3 breakfast and snacks for 5 girls? Purchased in less than an hour, for about $45/person. Amazing.
With our provisions secured, we headed back to the house to wait our driver with a warm-up glass of wine on the porch.
(Also, we were really pleased with the driving services, but I’ll save my review for that on yelp. However, if you’re going to Sonoma look up Terrific Tours.)
Pam and I had researched the vineyards (Excel, again) and had narrowed down a list of 70 recommendations into approximately 12 vineyards . We turned the list over to our driver who made some tweaks according to their experiences and connections. I was totally pleased with the choices they came up with, even though it changed about half of the places we had researched.
The day was nothing short of magical. Standing shoulder to shoulder at bars that ranged from beautiful, polished oak overlooking lush green rolling vineyards and palatial Italian terraces to old wooden plank bars in a farmhouse to wine glasses held directly under a spout in a barrel. We visited seven vineyards today: Ferrari-Carano, Sbraglia Family, Preston, Bella, J. Rankin, Pedroncelli, and Coppola.
My favorite thing about vineyards in Sonoma was how tucked away they all were. Without GPS or an experienced driver I’m not sure we would have found half of them. One of my favorites was Preston, which was a beautiful farm house and an organic farm. Here we sat outside (despite the cold) and ate our Oakville Grocery sandwiches accompanied by purring, friendly cats.
Preston Farms Vineyard
Um, scoos me, what u pack me for lunch?
Another favorite, J. Rankin was basically a shed with a wildly hilarious pourer and a beautiful dog named Shelby who recognized five dog lovers and literally threw herself at our feet. The vintner is a current ICU nurse, who makes wine in his “free time.” I loved the places were making wine was more about the passion than the pennies.
Around 3:30, we left J Rankin and our driver asked us if we wanted to make one more stop. Most of our visits had been about 45 minutes, so I’m sure he figured he had plenty of time for us to make one more stop. We agreed (of course) and he pulled up to Francis Ford Coppola. As a downpour began, he pulled us up to the door and we slipped inside to safety. This was the most crowded place we had been to, which is not surprising given it’s a little more well-known. We had to wait for a seat, which is apparently more than standard for normal in-season, but we had been spoiled by visiting places that were practically empty when we arrived.
Our pourer started off with the 5 wines on the tasting menu. We struck up a conversation with a couple next to us, and when they stood up to vacate their seats they waved us into their spot. In the midst of our conversing with the fellow patrons, we had lost the attention of our pourer. But at this point, we had become more interested in each other than the wine being poured. Once back in the hot seat, we turned our focus back to the task at hand.
“Have you all tried this one?” the pourer asked. I looked at the bottle, and didn’t recognize it. “No?”
“Well the couple who was sitting here wanted you to try it.” He poured me a glass, and it was one of the most delicious wines I had had all day. I couldn’t find the bottle on the tasting menu, until I finally found it on the list of wines for sale as one of the pricier selections. WELL. Good to know that there is a difference between the seventy dollar bottle and the twenty dollar bottle. Our enthusiasm won him over, and he came back with wine after wine for us to try as the tasting room emptied out.
All of a sudden the door flung open, allowing light to pour forth into the dark tasting room and our driver anxiously peered inside. “I just wanted to make sure you guys were still in here!” Once we got back to the car, we understood his worry – 2 hours has passed during our free-for-all of tasting!
The rest of the ride home we laughed and giggled and compared notes about our favorites. (My faves: Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc and Coppola Sofia Blanc de Blanc.) Our driver dropped us off, and carried our armloads of souvenirs inside. We prepped dinner (spinach dip by Pam, steak and couscous salad by Jess) and rehashed the day. After dinner we attempted to watch American Idol, but it wasn’t long before our heavy eyelids won over. One by one we drifted off to bed, eager to repeat the day’s events again tomorrow.
Souvenirs.
August 10, 2009
You know how sometimes you plan an event a few months out in advance, and then you talk it up and talk it up and talk it up and then the event comes and it’s not nearly as fun as you built it up to be in your mind?
Well, that did not happen this weekend.
1 limo, 9 girls, 3 vineyards. Perfection.
July 4, 2009
While this is a blog about eating healthy, I also promised to show you what I eat day in and day out. And one of my very favorite treats is a delicious, crisp glass of white wine. Every month, Consumer Reports publishes their best pick ones and last month they happened to have a BOX of wine as their best pick! I could hardly believe it, but since CR sent me in the right direction on my car and my fridge, I figured I had a good shot at enjoying the wine.
Not only was this pick, Fish Eye Pinot Grigio, dee-lish, it was also $19.99 (here in North Carolina) for a 3L box. Unbelievable.
Box wines go classy?!
Just in time for some holiday celebrating! Have a safe & happy 4th, ya’ll!
April 7, 2009
I am sitting on the railing of a light pine colored porch, with the camera lens zoomed out. Focused in my viewfinder are four beautiful girls, 2 half-empty bottles of wine, and a cheese plate with some rinds and the remains of an apple compote. The sun is baking down, melting the cheese rinds and slowly bronzing the girls. If my camera could capture laughter, I’m sure the memory card would be full within seconds. I snap the picture, hoping to catch one of the more perfect moments in my life, almost as if I don’t trust my own memory to bring me back to this moments. I couldn’t have designed a more picture-perfect day.
My view.
The day started off early – at 6:00 am, the alarm clock went off. As I ate my banana in the kitchen, slowly four sleepy eyed girls joined me in various degrees of workout gear and alertness. In January, four of us decided to sign up for the notoriously hilly Charlottesville Ten Miler. My girlfriends, the winos, make it a point to gather at least four times a year. Sometimes it’s for an occasion – a bachelorette party, a wedding, a birthday – but more often than not, it’s just to be with each other. This was somewhere in the middle, a ten mile race being used our excuse for a get together. We were in various stages of preparedness – Jenny came out of the womb running and was bouncing off the walls, as if a ten mile run was a walk in the park. Shelby had done a regular training plan, and was calm and ready. Jess, although not on a regular training schedule, had paced herself through long runs many times before and felt confident she could pull it off. I, on the other hand, had hit training plan FAIL. I had every good intention to train, but a colder, rainier spring and a totally wussy personality found me crossing off week after week without a run. At the last minute, I decided to run anyways, assuming I’d run half and walk half. With our “coach” and photographer, Emily, we set off. (I’ll blog about the run in a separate entry, because I had a big a-ha moment in the midst of my run. And you may have noticed, but I don’t exactly describe my thought processes with great brevity.) I did finish the run though – in 1:58. The rest of the girls finished in extremely respectable times, starting with Shelby finishing at 1:22 and the rest coming in at exactly 10 minute intervals (and thus, one minute less per mile).
Pre-run, sleepy pic.
After the run, which was as hilly AND gorgeous as had been promised by our host, we set out to embark on a breakfast of champions. We gobbled down omelettes and bottomless cups of coffee and planned out our day. Let me just say this: when your big decision of the day is “nap or no nap before vineyards”…. LIFE IS GOOD. Can I just have a DVR of my life and revisit this day again and again and again? Sigh. We voted no-nap (perhaps the bottomless coffee was speaking for us) and went back to Jessie’s house to get spruced up.
Veritas was beaaaautiful. I thought about inquiring if they would let me put a tent up in the vineyard and just hang out there, you know, forever. Maybe it was the comfortable, sunny weather, maybe it was the heart warming company, or maybe it was the deliciously crisp Sauvignon Blanc but I was in such a perfect state of nirvana. We stayed at the vineyard for a couple of hours, long past the bottles being empty and the rind of our manchego started to melt in the sun. The only motivation we had to finally get up and leave was a short trip down the road: a brewery.
Yum.
Same gorgeous mountains and green grass views. Same warm sun to bask in. Same wonderful company. Subtract 2 empty wine bottles; add in a sampler of local brewed beers and level 2 of friendship nirvana kicked in. We stayed at the brewery for another hour or so, and as the sun set, so did our fatigue set in.
More yum.
Back home to Charlottesville, we headed out for dinner at a place called The Local. Their claim to fame was that all their food came from places local to Charlottesville. I couldn’t imagine that a locally raised cattle burger would taste any different, but um yea… I was totally wrong. It was delicious (even though it wasn’t actually my plate, I swear I ate at least a third of Shelby’s.) I had a salad that, truth be told, kind of looked like lawn clippings, and in fact, I may have eaten a dandelion but it was so fresh and delicious I didn’t care. I will confess my gnocchi tasted a bit Chef Boyardee, but I’m not sure there’s a lot you can do to make gnocchi taste like anything other than the carbolicious pasta/potato combo that it is. After dinner, we convened for one drink in downtown Charlottesville before concluding that we were either way old/boring or that running ten miles and then sitting out in the sun drinking wine is an activity that does not well prepares you for a night on the town. We hope it’s the latter.
Winos. (Minus one.)
Our wonderful day concluded, we all fall asleep with well worn out bodies and hearts drunk on friendship and delicious food. Could I have dreamt up a better day with my girlfriends? Absolutely… but only by transporting our one missing wino, Pam, down here, as the missing piece. Other than that, I’m not sure I could have designed a better weekend – running, wine, music, photography, friendship… preeeeetty sure that hits all the high points on the happy-o-meter.
