Wine and cheese tasting

Since I last wrote, I've been EXTREMELY busy with school. I have only rarely been at home in the evenings. And, when I was, I was studying rather than enjoying wine. But not too long ago, the ninja and I went to a wine and cheese tasting at the local Wine Bar. Of course, the ninja didn't taste any wine, but they had beer, too.

I had a great time. Emphasis on the word "I". The ninja really liked the cheese and the beer, but gets a bit bored about wine talk.

Meanwhile, we purchased me a bottle of this really heavenly Chardonnay.

The next day, we went for a perfectly pleasant breakfast at Walter's in Claremont. Breakfast was perfectly acceptable. The ninja ordered an omelette. I ordered a "Ratatoullie burrito". Everything tasted perfectly acceptable, but the burrito just wasn't as good as it was billed. Bummer. I felt a little guilty, but I brought it to their attention.

Afterward, we ran our two REAL errands of the day. We visited the regionally-famous Claremont Farmers Market and we stopped by the Cheese Cave who had provided the cheese for the event the night before! We bought some of the cana de oveja and the majon reserve! It was totally yummy with the Novellum Chardonnay the second time around!

Highly recommended!

Carhartt 2009 Chase the Blues Away Rosé

On 9/3/10, I wrote: This afternoon it's time to clean house. Must make some room in the wine cooler thingy because I'm expecting a shipment from my wine club next week. That means I'm opening this lovely Rosé.

Ripe fruit on the nose. Run of the mill flavor - a bit flat and uninteresting in the mouth. Pleasant finish...

...Sadly, that's as far as I got on this wine. I didn't have time for it. So, it really didn't get a fair shake. I was scheduled to start school the next day after opening it. I did the responsible thing and went to bed early.

Bummer!

Blue Mountain Chardonnay II

So, about this Blue Mountain Chardonnay And how I came to have two bottles in my wine cooler thingy. Incidentally, here's what a wine cooler thingy looks like:


And, they're really called wine coolers. Not wine cooler thingies. But I'm of an age where "wine coolers" mean Seagram's Bahama Mama and Bartles and Jaymes (look 'em up here). But now that I'm all grown up, I rarely drink wine coolers unless you count Mike's Lemonade which is my default if that's the only choice (beer not being a real choice).

And, the way that those two bottles of Blue Mountain Chardonnay from Berthoud,  Colorado ended up in my wine cooler is that I BOUGHT THEM ON MY SUMMER VACATION!

The ninja and I took our two 12-yr old nephews to Florida for 5 days. We bookended those 5 days with two very relaxing long weekends in Denver. During the first of those weekends, my long-time girlfriend and I entered a tennis tournament together (in Colorado Springs). By my calculations, I played 13 sets of tennis in the course of 30 hours (9am Saturday through 3pm Sunday). That IS my idea of a relaxing weekend. I'm weird that way. Now, the second of those bookend weekends was much more to the ninja's liking. We bummed around the Tattered Cover and a clearance sale of GoLite gear. And, we hit two great Farmers Markets.

The second Farmers Market was right across from the Tattered Cover's Colfax Ave location. That's where I tasted the Blue Mountain Chardonnay and purchased two bottles! That's ALSO where we had a Thai Peanut Cilantro Omelette at Dolly's Omelettes booth. It was great! I've made two for myself back home in SoCal since that time. Delish!

After we bought the Blue Mountain Chardonnay, we had a BRIGHT IDEA! We were on a meandering, but relentless march toward Denver Int'l and the end of our vacation. And, I knew I couldn't put the wine in my carry on. And, I wasn't crazy about putting it my checked bag either. So, I thought, "Hey, let's stop by FedEx and ship it to ourselves!" Well, it turns out YOU CAN'T SHIP WINE even if it's to your own home address! Is that crazy?

Well, we ended up storing it carefully in our checked bag and everything turned out fine. And, here I sit, enjoying it today!

Blue Mountain Chardonnay

Love this wine!

It's right up my alley. I love light, sweet wines. A Riesling with an apple and peanut butter is my ABSOLUTE favorite Autumn supper. This slightly sweet Chardonnay is in that vein. I'm enjoying it as I write tonight!

But, sadly, no apple and peanut butter :(

Sadly, no Autumn either :(

The bugs seem to like it, too. It's hot in sunny Southern California tonight. And, our air conditioner went out about October last year. We didn't replace it because it was October, duh! This summer has been so mild here that we haven't really missed the air conditioner. Until this week. 108 degrees when NH* picked me up at the train station tonight!

I digressed again. Mea culpa. The bugs. Well, it's so hot that we have the front door open. The bugs seem to like the "Slight Sweet" Chardonnay. I've had to go pour out the wine, rinse and refill two or three times already tonight. The bugs keep committing suicide in my wine!

More to come about this wine...it has a story worth telling.

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*I know, I know...I still owe an explanation for the whole "ninja hubby" title...

Little Black Dress

I failed this wine on so many levels. It deserved better than I gave it. It was a very traditional tasting Merlot. Just like every other above average-to-very good Merlot that I've ever tasted (dozens I'm sure), it went down smooth and had the perfect little spicy finish. My nose kept going back to the plastic camp glass I poured it in to enjoy its perfect merlot-ness.

But alas, I opened it at the very end of the last evening of the camping trip. I managed to save the bottle but not its contents. It was unceremoniously emptied next to our campsite when we packed up to leave. It hurt to do it.

The other way in which I failed this lovely wine, is all in its name. This wine totally deserved a party or a dance or at the very least a girls' night out. All it got was a campfire and canvas.

This was also the evening of the campout when I discovered that with the campground's wireless and the Scrabble app on my iPod I could keep up with the 4-6 or so online Scrabble games that I have going at any point in time! I lose most Scrabble games because I can't bear to give up on a challenge. Once an opponent beats me, I must keep playing until I find a strategy (and the right luck) to beat them. This can take many, many games.

So. Kenny, Sandy, Lori, Michael and Jane can thank Steve Jobs and Mammoth Mountain RV Park and my "Little Black Dress" for the moves I put on them that night!

Hoopla

My husband and I went camping this weekend. Hereafter, he shall be known as "the ninja" or "ninja hubby" or "NH" for reasons I'll explain some day in these pages. For now, just trust me.

It is my "last hurrah" weekend trip prior to the Fall Semester at school. This semester I'm taking a heavier than normal load and I'm also acting as Teaching Assistant for my Corporate Finance professor. (Did I mention that I also work full-time and play a lot of tennis?)

Well, back to the camping trip. NH (Ninja Hubby, remember?) and I both took Friday off and loaded up the 1986 Jeep Comanche with tent, sleeping bags, camp kitchen gear and the dogs and THEIR camping gear and drove up to Mammoth Lakes, CA.

The drive through the desert was hot, noisy and windy. But neither of us requires a lot of conversation so that wasn't really a big deal. The scenery was interesting.

And we learned a lot. One of the things I learned is that there are spots on the highway between Edwards AF Base and other military installations out there where your GPS won't work - presumably it's "classified". It kept telling me I was on the 15 (the interstate to Vegas) when I was really 50 or 100 miles West of that!

One of the other things we learned is that Manzanar is on the 395 (road to Mammoth). Manzanar is the site of one of the Japanese Internment camps that were active in WWII. I read the whole article here.

We also looked up this article about Owens Lake.

But I digress. Hoopla? After we set up camp, we drove into town and bought a beautiful loaf of whole grain artisan bread generously encrusted with nuts and seeds of all shapes and sizes, a package of Sonoma Garlic Jack and the bottle of Hoopla Sauvignon Blanc shown here. NH bought this beer.

We spent the evening reading by the fire. During the evening, I had the Facebook exchange pictured below. And so now you are "in the know" about all the images that will ever be associated in my brain when I see this wine label!

My Life in Wine

I'm a 40-something, happily married without kids, career-minded, suburban female. I have a hobby. Wine. It's not all-encompassing like my other hobby, tennis. But I had to face up to the fact that nobody would want to listen to me talk about tennis non-stop.

As for wine, I'm no connoisseur. Oh, I can distinguish the difference between a 95-point Cab and a Two-Buck-Chuck (which I like of course), but I'm not qualified to describe the differences between the two in either qualitative or quantitative terms. So, minus the connoisseur gene, my hobby revolves around collecting wine labels and the memories that go with them.

I recently purchased this label lifting kit. The story about how I came to buy the kit is the first of the memories I'll share here.

I attend graduate school part-time. (More info to come, believe me). The little Southern California town where my school is located is called Claremont (look it up here or here or wherever - totally cool). I travel to school (and indeed all over SoCal) in an uncommon way. I use public transportation for roughly 80-90% of the miles that I travel.

Last semester, I had a class on Saturday mornings. Ugh! That cut dramatically into my tennis time! To console myself, I took leisurely strolls from campus through the village to the train station every Saturday after class. I often stopped for a bite at one of the many charming restaurants. And, I frequented the Birkenstock store and Chico's.

Well, one very warm late-April afternoon I stopped at a wine shop for a tasting. It was dark and cool inside. I stayed a long time. I lingered over each 2-oz taste in the 4 wine flight. That's where I found the label lifting kit.

The store had visually interesting displays, reminiscent of a wine cellar in some old French chateau. They also had a unique way of describing the qualities of the wine. I'm sorry I can't do their descriptions justice here. I'll have to go back some day. Here's the web page: http://www.winestyles.net/default.asp?id=456331.