Good Morning!

One of my favorite groups of friends all gathered in San Antonio, Texas this weekend. There ended up being 9 of us and the weekend started off on Thursday night. Sometimes we have tons of activities planned, this weekend was a bit more laid back. We wanted to catch up, laugh and decompress. We were wildly successful in all aspects.

I think when women get together it is exactly like when men gather, but our plans are a bit more set. I am not sure if that is a good thing but since I am a planner, it works for me. I had started a batch of infused vodka 4 months ago, so that takes some planning and since I had a few meals planned we had to go to the store before everyone arrived. My son, when he is having guy’s weekend, they all show up and then hit the grocery store and as he says…they “wing” it.

My friends came from California, Houston and Dallas and we heard stories about the kids, school, work, life and then of course the real fun started when we starting discussing old stories and the wine flowed the real connecting started. We tried wines and laughed and made tons of new memories. Wine is the ultimate networker. It helps people talk about the easy subjects and it will ease you into the deeper subjects. We talked about the country’s unemployment levels, politics and without much blood shed we all agreed on what to grill for dinner.

I find wine makes everyone equal. It does not care that you are a VP of Sales for a fortune 500, it does not care that you a re a Bank President, it could care less if you are a social worker, a Factory Manager, and Accountant or even a winemaker. Wine shows it’s self to everyone the same way, but how we each perceive it is up to our collective past experiences.

We always bring tons of wine and last year we went crazy for unoaked Chardonnay made by Cindy Cosco of Passaigo wines. This year we went wild for 2010 Cellar Rat Wine Merchants Verdelho, made by my pal Ryan Sciara. If you get a chance to meet Ryan, it is a must. He is a cool guy, marathon runner, tattooed artist who happens to own Cellar Rat Wine Merchants in Kansas City. Everything, I try a wine of Ryan’s it is special, not the same old, same old. He plays with different grapes and I am always inspired to find great foods and friends to pair with his wines!

I hope you had a great weekend too! Thanks girls for all the fun, safe travels home!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi