Good Morning!

I have the great fortune to be involved in a circle of amazing home winemakers. This all start back 12-13 years ago when I still lived in Indiana. There are people all over the world making wine. Wine can be made out of anything that can decompose, I know how gross that sounds but stay with me on this, I promise you might expand your mind and palette a bit.

OK, so my first winemaking class the winemaker says, If something can rot, you can make wine….I almost fainted. But once I took a step back and started thinking about it he is right. I thought about my friends who’s dad’s used to make some weird hooch in their basement and garages growing up. Many of us were raised on or around farms and My parents had a 3 acre apple orchard and we made cider every year. We had pears and we also had an acre garden with any veggie known to man, so I could have been making wine as a kid, I just did not connect the dots.

Then I heard how if you go to jail and you would take your orange juice and put it in a dark spot for ten days then pull the “top layer” off, the juice that was left would rock you out of your socks! Hahaha, I hope to never have to try that. Anyway, wine is really yeast and fruit working against each other. Natural yeast is flying all in the environment and if you took any fruit and just burst the skin or peel or outside to expose some of the flesh, the yeast will grab on and yeast will find the nature a sugars, fructose, and once those two meet, well, the yeast will turn the sugar in to alcohol and the process is on.

So back to wine, once I met some other winemakers we started sharing resources, like tanks, barrels, fruit ( Like raspberries, currants etc), then I met folks who were working with grapes and not just concord grapes making sweet wines. We wold pool our money and buy riesling, chardonnay, zinfandel, cabernet, barolo you name it we were machines. The really cool thing was how expereimental some of these guys would get. At first I wanted to only make the veritial of that grape, then we started each one of us making a batch, bringing in the wines and tasting, then we would start blending. One batch I made was half Viognier and half zinfandel, it looked like a blush wine but it was dry, everyone there LOVED it. The real test was to take it to my friends and see what they thought, those fools took one look and thought I was making White Zin and decided they did not want sweeter wines….I would have been mad but I had 3 cases all for myself!

We would trade wines all the time make 4 cases each and then trade with each other. I loved the fellowship and going to someone’s garage in February and tasting and catching up with life was awesome.

When I moved to California, these folks are not joking. These people have bought property and they are managing a backyard filled with 15 year old zines and when we would barrel taste, I have had much better wines from a garage than most tasting rooms in the world will ever offer.

So the next time you are offered some “Homemade” wine, try it. You might just be surprised! That is how I got started…you might be witnessing something really special.

Much LOVE and wine,
Cheers, Tammi

Good Morning,

This week is going to be AWESOME. I am headed to Sacramento for the UNIFIED Grape and Wine Symposium. I have never been to this event. It will have an exhibit hall with 1000’s of people to connect with, then displays for me to check out. From what I have heard about this function there will companies representing every aspect of grape growing, winemaking, marketing and anything it takes to make, drink and sell wine. I am excited.

There is so much I do not know, so much to learn and being in a place where I can ask questions and try to understand what will it take to produce an amazing wine, get millions of people to try and buy it and then of course create loyal customers who will introduce their friends to my wines.

Then later this week is the infamous ZAP wine event in San Francisco. This event is all about Zinfandel, the grape that is known as the “American” grape. It is said that zinfandel is indigenous to the USA. After some research there are some conflicting accounts of this information, but I am just gonna go with it.

When I still lived in Indianapolis, I would hear all about the 1000’s of people who would leave the exhibit with purple teeth and many of them were also swaying down the street. But I am going to take a tasting note pad and seeing how long I can last. I love Zinfandel. I love the huge dark berry fruits, and once the high alcohol wine opens up, then I am ready to enjoy it. I bought these grapes from Lodi, CA one year and made one of my best wines ever. I did have to let it relax for months before I bottled it. I had it picked at brix 25.2 (Brix is the unit of measure for percentage of sugar in the grapes). I wanted the Brix to get to 26, but the rains were coming and I did not want to risk it. The higher the brix, the higher the sugar and as a result when the wine ferments the alcohol is pretty high, mine turned out a 15.6….it would blast your mouth with heat!

I love the way Zinfandel opens up in the glass. After you pour your glass, take a quick sniff, you will mostly get what I call the “boozie” aromas. You will know the scent. Give it 30 minutes, swirl it around the glass and take another sniff, you will get that rich, lush, berry and tons of white pepper.

So if I were going to pair it with anything, my all time favorite is cheesecake with Zin. It will blow your mind. The sweet, savory, creaminess of the cheesecake and the bold berries will merge and you should find yourself smiling as the wine finishes in your mouth. If you are looking for a savory pairing, I like Zin with ribs, grilled and just a little sauce, actually I like the pairing better with dry rubbed ribs and no sauce, but my family thinks I am weird when it comes to ribs. But the rich, fatty rib meat is easily cut with the bold Zin.

There, you have heard about my upcoming week…Zinfandel, Wine Symposium and I plan on sushi dinner with my pals in San Francisco. I will blog from all these events! As I learn more, I will share with you!

This shot was in Vegas at Aurerole, Best wine Angels ever!

Good Morning!

I love to read, I am a avid reader. I am not sure I absorb everything I read but I read constantly. I am hooked on wine books, magazines and business books or biographies of business people and politicians. I am a news junkie and I can sometimes make myself crazy with information. Last year I had 4 wine mag subscriptions and read 64 books on wine or wine business related books.

I also watch a couple of wine video blogs weekly too. I know you have other interests as do I but I focus on where I want my life to go and that is in the wine industry. I’d like to be a Sommelier but I think my time is better spent focusing on grape production, terrior, winery management and biology of grapes in general.

Here is a list of the books I really gained a ton of knowledge from:

1. The Wine Lover’s Companion…the glossary of terms and how to pronounce terms.

2. Wine for Dummies, if you want to understand the process of making wine, this is a great go to guide!

3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting and Running a Winery, great book to lay out your plan on why you want to start the business and the business plan to actually make it work. It helped me develop the financial plan to make put it all together.

4. The Wine Bible, Great overall book about wine regions, grapes and overall answers.

5. Wine for Women, Written so simply and direct.I have given this book as a gift many times. How to pair, when to drink what, Leslie Sbrocco uses fashion terms that are easy to relate with.

6. Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine, If you want to expand your palette, this is an easy read and buyers guide to getting new wines and what to expect them to taste like and how to pair them.

7. The Finest Wines of Champange, Well written and quite techincal, very specific information and the second half of the book discusses producers and regions. Packed full of information about bubbles. only draw back for me was the text was very small, so I would have liked bigger text.

Blogs I love

Video blogs:

Gary Vaynerchuk Wine Library TV…This guy is like someone’s spaz little brother, who is brilliant and uses very real terms to describe wine.

Mark Fusco www.1337wine.com very smart guy!

I read these blogs most everyday:

www.1winedude.com
www.goodgrape.com
www.bakasmedia.com
www.pinotblogger.com
www.thristygirl.com
www.wines.com
www.winetroublemaker.com

I know there are 1000’s of folks writing blogs and millions on twitter. I love reading new things and just listening to their stories and experiences and getting to “KNOW” what they are all about.

I hope you will do the same!

Much LOVE and wine!

Cheers, Tammi

My Patio wine being enjoyed!

Good Morning!

When I was a kid my grandparents would take us to dinner for our birthday. They always took us to the Red Lion Hotel in Muncie, IN. It was fine dinning. We had to dress up and they had a band on the weekends. I remember they always knew my grandfather. He was a businessman and he took clients their all the time. It was a steak place. It was decorated in rich red velvet walls and leather chairs. I remember the servers always made up Roy Rogers (7up with grenadine). They would put a cherry in and it looked like a cocktail. The chef would always come out and wish me a happy birthday and if I wanted to see the kitchen he would take me in the back and let me see the birthday cake he made for me. I felt like a princess.

The rest of my childhood we mostly ate at home. Once in a great while we would load up and head to Ponderosa steak house. I am sure back then it would cost my folks a few bucks, I had 2 brothers. I liked going out to eat because I did not have to do the dishes. My parents were never drinkers, to this day my mama might have a glass of wine or two when she is with me, but they never ordered wine or cocktails. My image of going out to eat was being wealthy and I thought you had to be super rich to afford the Red Lion.

Today, I love to go out to eat. I love taco trucks, street food, I always print out the top places to eat in the bay every year and try to hit all the spots. I also watch Food TV and when I see a place in a city I travel to I make a point to try the places I have seen. I have had some great experiences from it and tried food I would not normally thought about.

Some blog in the near future I will make a list of my favorite wine bars in the US….but today I just wanted to share some special places I have tried while traveling that you might want to try!

These places made me again feel like I was special and the food was great! Most of these places are not expensive and causal, so try these is you can.

1. Red Iguana, Salt Lake City, UT, get a margarita and the enchilada with green sauce.

2. Jake’s Portland, OR, go to the bar during happy hour and all the specials are served on small plates so you can order a couple and their wine list is impressive.

3. Oceanaire, Indianapolis, IN, go to the bar and order Rose’ sparkling and get the seafood tower. Pure luxury!

4. The Purple Cafe, Seattle, WA, grab the Sommelier, and order the cheese platter. They might be some of the most educated wine folks I have ever met.

5. Pizza King, Muncie, IN….Royal Feast with BBQ sauce…I got hooked on this pizza as a kid, when my Aunt Stinky worked there in high school.

6. Aureole, Las Vegas, NV, Pure visual and sensual dinning experience, bring your wallet

7. Slanted Door, San Francisco, CA, Get reservations if not sit at the bar. It is loud and fantastic energy pumping through the place. The Shakin’ Beef is really awesome.

8. Zola, Washington, DC, I could hardly eat while I was there, so many people I recognized from TV. Supreme Court justices, senators etc. On Thursday nights, they have dinning specials and the value of this very high end meal, the affordable wines and the stellar service, really awesome night!

9. Denver Chop House, Denver, CO, this was a true steakhouse experience, big red wines, hearty steaks, wait staff never lets a glass go empty.

10. Red Hawk Brewing, Ann Arbor, MI, I love the craft brewed beers and pub food and the tap room atmosphere. Located in the heart of the U of M campus, great energy and vibe.

11. Recess, Indianapolis, IN, I love this place, the menu changes daily and the wine pairings are amazing. Small place, have reservations it is worth effort.

12. Puerto Allegra, San Francisco, CA, This is the best way to experience the Mission district. Order a pitcher of Margarita from Norma, all the food is authentic and the place is so eclectic and pure San Francisco.

13. Bangs, Denver, CO, This place is a HUGE surprise. The food was that of 4 star dinning, only 10-12 tables, nightly specials and the wine list was filled with everything! It is hard to find in a little neighborhood, but if you find a wineshop called Mondo Vino, you are across the street!

14. Taylor’s Refresher, St Helena, CA, James Beard award winning food served in a place where you stand in line and then eat on picnic tables. The ahi tuna burger with sweet potato fries and a bottle of Merryvale wine….No better way to spend the day!

15. What the Pho?, Bellevue, WA, The name grabbed my attention, but the food had brought me back there everytime I am in the PacNorthwest. Fresh, fun and very affordable. They always have the game on too!

I have millions more, but these are the first to come to mind. I will write more about them in the future.

Much LOVE and Cheers!

Tammi

La Gloria in San Antonio, Texas

Hola!

Today I signed up to start taking Spanish classes, I should have taken a second language back at Yorktown High School. But who knew that I would need to ever speak anything besides English? I love Spanish wines and cava and I want to know more about all the latin countries plus, I love to travel but I have a real reason to learn Spanish.

Last year, I was reading about a contest in the Wine Enthusiast by Lapostolle Wines. It was called Uncork Your Passion, I thought it was interesting so I signed up. Then I had to tweet why I would be a great apprentice winemaker and get friends to “RT” (retweet my message). The winner would be decided by the amount of folks who “liked” your tweet and then the judges would then define who had the best content. I wrote several tweets and the great friends I have on Twitter and Facebook thought I was a good fit and they really rallied together and I was selected the Grand Prize Winner! I am thrilled!

Lapostolle Wines are a 180,000 case a year production winery of high quality wines located in the Colohagua Valley area of Chile. I will be there for weeks and besides working with the harvest team and their winemaker Andrea Leon. I will get to take cooking classes, visit surrounding wineries and anything else the country of Chile has to offer. Lapostolle is owned by the Marnier corporation, they make fine spirits like Grand Marnier liquor. ( I love it after dinner).

I want to understand what is being said and I want to add to the conversations. Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks but I am up for the challenge. I used Rosetta Stone to try to learn French for my trip to Rhone, France. It was helpful and while I was around those speaking French, I could figure out what was being said. But I have a thick southern accent and I only hear out of one ear so when I listen to the voices on the system, many times I did not always hear the nuances of the french accent and so I hope when I was in France I did not sound like Paula Dean. But if I did, I am sure the French folks had a good laugh and that makes me giggle to think I made their day.

So to learn Spanish I am going to take a new approach. I am going to class 2 nights a week 3 hours each night and then 2 nights a week, I get to be with a tutor and he will not allow me to speak English. We will go to only Spanish speaking places to dine and he has found several wine bars that have Spanish speaking bartenders. I am thinking I might have a good chance to at least be conversational by mid March. I will keep you posted on how the Spanish lessons are going.

So for right now I can say this…..Hasta luego Salud!