i heart portland

so i just got back from another trip to portland...4th one...in fact, it's the most visited city that i've never lived in, which is rare since i usually like going to see new places. granted, each time i go, it's for a different reason where i see different people and different places. this time around, i went with jon so he could take a look at wscc's campus. this visit was also more of a exploration of portland and (since i'm with jon) an eating marathon. i hadn't really trolled around the different portland neighborhoods yet, so it was interesting to see them all. my conclusion (besides the obvious fact that i heart portland and i'll be moving up here soon)...portland has some of the most creative and interesting cocktails in its bars/restaurants/lounges. the best was from the teardrop lounge where i had a cocktail called "the freedonia", which is made up of foie gras infused armagnac, costa rican coffee, some other liqueur that i can't remember, and pistachio gastrique. strange, but so smooth. of late, i've been getting back into cocktails and even starting to like gin...maybe this past harvest kind of put the kibosh on beer and wine for me temporarily.

oh and did i mention the eating? we had a lot of good recommendations from a friend of jon's and we tried many of them and they were all quite tasty. our favorite restaurant was "pok pok", a thai restaurant, that we went to twice...couldn't get enough the first time around! you can see the bar in the background below...i didn't take many photos...it was basically grey and cold in portland...but please enjoy the one below of mt. shasta. you can also see my rubber duck collection in the corner. tom stransky gave me the red one randomly one day and just the other day, someone left the white one on my car windshield in san francisco...

gobble gobble gobble

happy turkey day...yeah, i know...it's december, but it's been incredibly busy at work and i'm just now getting around to posting a couple of photos from my thanksgiving. this year, i decided not to go home due to the expensive plane tickets and the possibility that i would have to work over the long weekend. instead, jon hosted a small gathering of friends and we cooked thanksgiving dinner. it was a great night where the drinking started in the afternoon and most everything went off without a hitch. i even rallied to go out to the elbo room for some dancing later that night.
paul hobbs winery provided me with a 17.6 lb willie's organic turkey...biggest thing i've ever tried to cook! but it was a beautiful turkey. we wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked it for about 4 hours (an hour or so too long since we were distracted by our oysters on the half shell and champagne) before removing the foil, basting with herb butter, and baking for another 30 minutes. i thought it was quite tasty, but jon thought it was a bit dry. well at least it looked delicious as you can kind of see below...sadly the photo of our thanksgiving table as well as our guests didn't turn out quite light enough, but below is our side table with a view of the candy pumpkins and pumpkin pie. my 1st attempt at a pumpkin pie...i've never been a big fan because i always thought pumpkin pie was a little too heavy so i found a pumpkin-chiffon pie recipe where there was added honey and whipping cream...mmm...and i hadn't even added the honey-brandy whipping cream and candied pecans on top yet :) all in all, it was an awesome thanksgiving. i give thanks to my friends, family, jon, and the fact that we're going to have a democrat in office by next year...cheers to that!

trick or treat!

it's amazing...we received our last lot of grapes october 24th...chardonnay grapes, no less. there's still a lot of work to be done with the cabernets that are fermenting in tank. also, my work load in the lab is steadily increasing as i'm monitoring all the barrels with the 2008 pinots and chardonnays. but, this week will be my first week with 2 days off...in a row! i don't know what i'll do with myself. i do know that i'm starting to have the energy to call my friends again, many of whom i haven't talked to in ages.

well, winter is definitely approaching...even in california. it's certainly darker in the morning when i leave for work and a bit colder. today we got our first autumn rain and it was a chill-to-your-bone kind. i look forward to sweater and hot chocolate weather though. and after these few years in california, i still miss the first snowfall.

on that note, i leave you with the pumpkins that jon and i carved this week. it was great to be a kid again...hand inside the pumpkin tearing out pumpkin guts. and it was great to roast pumpkin seeds again...mmm...

every day is a wednesday...teetering on the hump

so i'm still in harvest. i have been since labor day. it's been an odd harvest. the heat at the beginning of september brought in our 1st wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it got colder. then it started warming up a bit more during the day, which led to the 2nd wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it threatened to rain, which brought in a bit more pinot, chardonnay, and our 1st cabernet. then it rained. so now we're in limbo...waiting for the grapes to dry a bit and regain equilibrium. then, i bet you, it's going to hit us like a ton of bricks.

i love my job...i love my job...i love my job...

well, at least that's what i say to myself every morning on my way to work. ah...i've lost track of what the actual day of the week it is. to me, every day feels like a wednesday. teetering on that hump day. unsure which way the see-saw will swing...back towards the beginning of the week or towards the end of the week where a faint light glows showing the way to the elusive "day off". although, to be honest, sometimes i'd rather not have a day off, then my body is constantly on adrenaline to keep going and going. when i come back from 1 day off, my body is just more tired than before. to fully recover, one needs 2 days off in a row. well, there's always december!

at least, my life is not filled with ugliness as you can see by the photo of our estate vineyard at 7am a week or so ago before the rains came.
and on a different note. i've done a piss-poor job trying to grow my dahlias that i had high hopes for back in the summer. too much sun...not enough sun...too much water...not enough water (kind of like this harvest). so imagine my surprise when i noticed that one of the plants did try to produce a flower...albeit a quite "special" looking flower as you can see below. but a flower nonetheless! you can understand the degree of suprisedness (yes that's a word in my world) when you see what the rest of the plant looks like next to the flower. reminds me to be optimistic again...maybe america's economy won't completely crash...maybe voters this year will actually do the right thing...

hurry up and wait...

all right, here's our Paul Hobbs Winery harvest team processing our very 1st grapes of the 2008 harvest...some delicious pinot noir from the Valdez vineyard...

time to crush some fruit...

...it's crazy...it's the end of august, but it's still august and we received our first lot of chardonnay...albeit for a custom crush client, but still...it's pretty bleeping early! this means that the madness of harvest begins again. this year will be a strange harvest for me since this will be the first time that i WON'T be a harvest intern. i'll actually be in charge of a couple of harvest interns (or sample bitches as their nickname will most likely end up being :). it'll be intense and it'll be a test of my managerial skills, but it'll also be most interesting. i'll have to try to keep the blog updated on how everything goes.

well, at least i got in one last weekend in san francisco with my newly minted boyfriend (yes, that's right...mj has finally snagged a man...poor sucker...hahah) before he won't be able to see me for days on end. it was an interesting weekend as well since we went to the friday outside lands concert in golden gate park. that was madness on a poorly organized level. there were way too many people and the artist line-ups were way too close together. i only got to see half of the black keys (while eschewing beck since i assumed, and correctly, that there would be way too many people trying to see beck) before i felt that i had to make my way over to the main stage for radiohead. i didn't even get that close to the stage (as you can see from the blurry photo below). it was good to hear them play their new stuff, but i will always hold dear to my heart the concert i saw on their ok computer tour at the rosemount theatre in chicago...center section, third row...it was most amazing...almost a life-altering experience. well their light show has matured with the new technology, but they are still one of the greatest bands ever. we left halfway thru their encore because we were afraid of the onslaught of drunkards trying to get out. it was a correct decision since i heard a riot almost broke out in the tunnel that leads to one of the exits. luckily, a friend has an apartment on geary street so we got to drink beers while watching the poor souls waiting forever for a jam-packed public bus. ah, that is the way to do it...

pinot mania @ ipnc

well, i'm fresh from a road trip that i took with my roommate katy (of flowers winery) and my good friend rebecca (of schramsberg winery) who was interning at domaine meo camuzet in 2005 while i was at maison champy in burgundy...yes that's right...a trio of enologists! we drove up to mcminnville (oregon) in the willamette valley (about an hour drive from portland) for the international pinot noir celebration. we three are quite the pinotphiles, so it was high time that we did some serious tasting of oregon pinots (as well as the californian, burgundian, and kiwi wineries that were also pouring). we were highly impressed with penner-ash winery and a few others. there is some great potential for pinots there. the quality is defintely there in the grapes. the winemaking could be tweaked. in the end, this trip pretty much confirmed my desire to move to and (hopefully) settle in portland. i miss city living (so not the case in petaluma) and i miss new england. the willamette valley and portland hold the keys to resolving this! i can live in a city and just drive 45 minutes to an hour into wine country, ski country, and ocean beach country. and i can be among the evergreen forests that remind me of home.

i also ran into dimitri bazas, the winemaker at maison champy, my old boss, and now a good friend. his palette is unbelievably amazing. the wine literally speaks to him, so it was very interesting to taste with him and refine my palette as well. who knows, dimitri and this trio of enologists may be doing some interesting things in the future...les anges...dimitri and i before we dug into our delicious fried chicken...
becky searching the horizon at penner-ash winery...
super katy at archery summit winery...

view of the estate vineyard at archery summit...

p.s. these photos were all taken with my new favorite thing...my new cellphone, the lg dare, or verizon's answer to the iphone...

hallelujah! the sun rises again...

it's been awhile i know and i'm sure most of you have lost interest, but things have been pretty much business as usual in petaluma/sonoma county with nothing very exciting to report let alone take photos of.

there has been one thing of note that has been going on in northern california...wildfires. i didn't get any photos of how hazy it was and there's no way to instill the smell of bbq that permeated the sonoma county air for a week, but it has been wicked hazy/smokey out here since last weekend. the sunrises and sunsets have been weirdly amazing and it's been ridiculously cooler than usual because the sun couldn't infiltrate all that smoke. from my office window, you can usually see the napa mountains and mt. st. helena, but you couldn't even see 100 yards away into the next vineyard. petaluma has been far from danger, though, so i'm quite lucky.

and happily, today, i looked outside and i could see the sky...

budbreak

spring is here, which most of you know, but i've been a little slow in updating my blog. however, with spring, comes budbreak and the rebirth of our vines. it's very exciting to see the vineyard come alive again, especially since i pruned some so it's good to see that i didn't kill any vines ;).
it's also been exciting because our new winery for the 2nd label is almost finished being built. i went over last week to help guide kieran move tanks with the forklift. i also witnessed how they actually lift these giant tanks up...
i also took in a a's vs. twins game because it was a special $2 ticket/$1 hot dog night. it's nice to see that even at the colliseum, you can still find yankees haters in the girls restroom. it was a great game made even greater 'cause i got to spend it with my roommate katy and my best friend katie!

wait a second...

...i'm not in my 20's anymore?!? alack and alas, as most of you know, i turned 30 last week. it seriously just crept up on me. and you all know that i still act like i'm 25!

well, i decided to attempt to embrace it by having a party in san francisco at the wine bar, amélie (props to amelie for putting up with our party). i wished more of you could have been there, but i do realize that not all of you, unfortunately, live near the bay area. but there were still enough people (some of whom i haven't seen in awhile...that's you, former uc-davis labmates!) to make it a fun time. jenn even snuck away from the hospital and flew up from san diego! a lot of wine was drunk , but not enough dancing occurred...well the venue wasn't really appropriate for dancing and we stayed too late to try to find a nightclub before they closed. i would highly recommend amélie to anyone looking for hip wine bar to hang out in san francisco. i won't regale you with the photos dannie took of me trying to be a model (including the one that is my new facebook profile pic), but please enjoy the group shot of some of us below ...i have to thank dannie and jenn for being the photographers of the night. the photos seen here were taken by dannie, so i have to include her artistic photo from our hotel room below...

9th Sonoma County Pruning Championship

it's leap day, so as a salaried worker who is not getting an extra 8 hours of pay, let's take a field trip to the sonoma county pruning championship! the main draw is the individual race where you're judged on speed and ability/finesse. however, there's also a "celebrity" contest with winemaker/vineyard manager teams representing some of the AVAs in sonoma county. our intrepid winemaker/vineyard manager team of megan and scott (in the photo below) were entered in to help russian river valley win it all in the relay pruning race. unfortunately, it was not meant to be...damn you, alexander valley! however, we did get some great action shots and one of the sweeping vista with the ritchie vineyard.

planting walnut trees in manteca

this past president's day weekend, i ventured down to manteca to visit katy's (new roommate and past fellow craggy ranger) family and repay the favor of helping us move into our new apartment. what better way to celebrate our founding fathers' birthday by planting walnut trees (sorry, we didn't get to the lone cherry tree that was to be planted)!
the 1st step is to line up the trees so that every row is as straight as possible to make mowing and other upkeep easier as well as for general aesthetics. to do that, i had to stand with a pole marking where i thought was the appropriate spot, while katy drove the john deere gator around and gave me alignment directions.
once that is done, then katy's dad drills a hole with a bobcat and we get to the planting. a few scoops of black dirt, make sure the roots are layed out properly, a few shovelfuls of dirt, a few steps to get out the air bubbles, a few more scoops of black dirt on top of magic tea bags, and we're done! pretty easy, but wait, there's 64 more trees to go. luckily, along with this hard work, i was treated to some of the best meals, including true bacon, slow-roasted pork butt burritos, and grilled tri-tip.
katy's family also has many springer spaniels, one of whom just had puppies. i quickly found my favorite. you can see "winky" in the top left corner with the one eye that is covered half in white fur and half in brown fur.

WTF!?!

that's all that this squirrel has to say about this sunday...

the hobo life

well, it's the new year and i've been living the hobo life. since returning from oregon, i've been staying with danielle colombo (my long lost sister some would say) in santa clara and commuting to sonoma valley for interviews. i'm proud to say that i have been hired on as an enologist at Paul Hobbs Winery...my first "real" job in the wine industry! it's a fabulous winery in the sonoma valley making some awesome wine. i will soon move into a new apartment in Petaluma with my friend katy that i met in new zealand. don't worry, i'll be e-mailing out my new address. and for those of you close enough, there will be a small party to christen the new apartment. ah, parting with the hobo life will be sad...

i did start my new job without having moved in yet, so i had a pleasant commute from the sonoma coast for a few days......followed by a few days commuting from marin county. and next week, i'll be commuting from napa valley! everybody's been real friendly and i believe i'm adjusting quite well to the new workplace and having to work again. it has been hard to get used to waking up at 5am again. the winery is small enough that i still get to do the occasional cellarwork, which i still quite enjoy. and the view from my lab (that's right folks...especially those of you from my bbri days...i'm back in a lab) is quite pretty.
(got to love the bubbling cash still)

city of roses

new year and new blog entry...

...well, i decided to take the opportunity to check out my potential future in oregon and to visit wynne's home turf. i was lucky to make it up before some huge storm seemed to overtake the pacific northwest and northern california. i was even luckier to manage to get up to mt. hood on one of the very rare sunny days in order to get on a snowboard for the first time in two years. i happily picked it up right quick and with no broken bones by the end of the day. (the photo below is courtesy of pdxguide.com because i didn't bring my camera with me for fear of breaking some part of my body by falling on it).and so, in conclusion, i LOVE portland and the northern willamette valley! a bit of new england and a bit of california. i must find a way to move up here in the very near future. i think i'll be able to handle the rainy winters in exchange for no sales tax and roses year-round. (the 1st photo is of domaine serene while the 2nd is of domaine drouhin's vines)

another reason for loving oregon is what i've finally realized about california drivers. i would like to call it the Mysterious california Highway Incident Phenomenon or McHIP. now this syndrome may seem more evident to me, a non-Californian (some would say MASShole) driver. i know i have encountered this elsewhere, but just seems more predominant here in the golden state. before i continue, i must apologize to the california drivers that don't fall under the McHIP syndrome. there's usually 3 basic incidents that make up McHIP...

1. the inexplicable traffic slowdown or complete halt for 10 to 3 hours. by the time, traffic begins to move again, there's no evidence at all for what actually caused this !@$#& stoppage.
2. as you cruise down the highway, you see a bend up the way. all of a sudden, everyone starts braking. it's as if they see the bend and begin to freak out that maybe the world ends on the other side of the bend. you would think that this can't be everybody's absolute first time on this part of the highway. california short term memory...it's the same way with the re-appearance ofbad fashion trends.
3. finally, the most maddening, you get some jerk on your tail while you're already going 80-85mph. so you move to the right, let the jerk pass, then resume your position on the left-most lane. then, without warning, the jerk slows down to 60mph. then they get all pissy when you start riding their tail. you'd think that if these drivers would get all distracted that they would use cruise control so they could at least maintain their speed while they drink their coffee, apply their make-up, do the crossword puzzle, and make business deals on the phone.

well, i'll get off my traffic soapbox now. until next time, please enjoy napa vines and mustard plants!