“I like blends,” Dave said as we sat down to a bottle of “Beyond the Pale” from MYV vineyard in Paso Robles. Beyond the Pale is one of my favorite every-day wines and as nearly as I can tell, you can only buy it one place on the entire planet. MYV is Minassian Young Vineyards (www.minassianyoung.com) and I guess they changed it to MYV simply because a lot of us stumbled over Minassian. I could manage the Young part pretty well. This particular wine is a blend of five wines — two of which are my very favorites. It’s Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Mouvedre and Malbec. Now I ask you — what’s not to like? — and they have more than one really delicious wine, but I digress… Dave and Janet were here to fix my pesky wine chiller that I bought at a local thrift store. Imagine a 6′… Read More »
The New Car
Today instead of writing about Phyllis Diller I had to write what’s in my heart. I just got a new car, so why am I sitting here crying? It’s not the new car– which, actually is a barely used pre-owned car — it’s saying goodbye to the old car. When I drove Scout, my 2000 Ford Explorer, across town this morning, I knew I was driving him for the last time. I felt like I was taking a beloved pet to the vet for the final and fatal visit. You see, Scout was the car of my dreams. I had waited for him, planned for him, saved for him, for several years before I actually — on my birthday in 1999 — called my friend Harold at the Ford dealership and told him I was ready. Harold took me to the “off-site” and we prowled through the lines of cars before I found The One. I don’t know what… Read More »
More on recycling
… so in the recycling bin, there’s an unusual amount of white wine bottles. Normally it’s crammed with reds. I love the hearty reds like zinfandel, syrah and the GSM blends (that would be the Rhone blends: Grenache, Syrah and Mouvedre) but for summer, I want something light and refreshing. Don’t you? Except if you’re having steaks on the barbecue and that calls for a hearty zin or syrah. But I digress … Whites have lots to recommend them. For one thing, as a rule, they are cheaper than reds. (Hurrah!) There are exceptions, of course. One of my favorites is Chemin de Fleurs from Daou Vineyards in Paso Robles. A lovely, refreshing premium wine ($38 or so) with a hint of flowers. And that is for special occasions like my friend Lois’s birthday next week. But for everyday, for just me, I want to keep it reasonable. So, let me tell you what was in… Read More »
Last night as I was dragging the recycling
Last night as I was dragging the recycling bins out to the curb, I was once again mildly astonished at how many wine bottles I’d managed to accumulate. And I smiled when I thought about what fun we’d had drinking all that! Yowzer! The star of the recycling bin was, without a doubt, the Stags’ Leap 2008 Petite Sirah we opened for Judy’s birthday. You would think — as Judy did — that anything from Stags’ Leap would be dynamite, but it was actually a bit of a let down. I later realized it was young and needed to breathe, or at the very least should have been decanted and allowed to open up. It was tight and a bit harsh. I have an aerator courtesy of friends who know that I love anything related to wine, but really I cringe at using aerators or anything that would interfere with the natural wine process. Okay, I’m a wine purist — I… Read More »
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