Skiing in Spring!!

What a great day!! I *finally* had a chance to go cross-country skiing during one of our many snowstorms this season. All the other storms happened on work days and then were immediately followed by near zero degree temperatures. I happened to be off today for Good Friday and the temperature was perfect for busting out the skis and breaking a few trails. I went to two different areas in the city with a break in between at my favorite coffeeshop. I am fortunate to live within five minutes of a number of beautiful parks and river parkways. Since it was still blizzarding when I went out, I also got soaked, but that was half the fun. It helped a lot to be wearing a good pair of goggles. Getting out and playing in the snow was the best way to keep my spirits up after a brief teaser of spring-like weather this week. We could actually see our yards again for the first time since early December--well, no longer. This has been a long, hard winter filled with many snowstorms, lots of dashed plans, and way too much shoveling...which is exactly how I will be starting my day tomorrow...shoveling out of at least 12 inches of snow, assuming it actually does stop snowing overnight...

Open That Bottle Night 2/23

I hosted my first wine tasting since leaving Seattle with my new winebrat friends here. A good time was had by all and wonderful wines were shared. The top wines of the evening were 2006 Foley Pinot Noir (Rancho Santa Rosa), 2005 Incognito (David Michael Phillips-Lodi), and 2003 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe (Chateauneuf du Pape). All were pretty concentrated with dark fruit and spice (even the Pinot) on the nose and the palette, and had a nice, long finish. They all paired extremely well with food, esp. the Pinot and the roasted eggplant. I would buy more of all of them. The other wines were also very good, but there were too many of them, so unfortunately, my tasting notes are loosely scribbled and full of obvious redundacies. I was hoping to share more about all of the wines, but my notes are useless. I also recently attended tastings featuring all Syrah, and before that, a tasting with the winemaker from Korbel. We all fell in love with their 2004 Lake Sonoma Zinfandel (Russian River). It had a powerful bouquet, a silky mouth-feel, full of ripe, dark berry fruit, with vanilla notes, and a long finish. It was perfection. Time to sign out. Cheers.