September 2007

Just thinking of hops and the joyful flavors they add to beer (mmmm, beer), makes me thirsty.

This:

Led to this:

That’s a view of the Hood River valley from the deck of the house overlooking Phelps Creek vineyard. The owner of the vineyard lives in that house. Talk about bringing your work home with you, but damn, that’s a pretty sweet set up there, boy.

The Fetching Mrs. Bixby and I were in Hood River for a quick weekend get away at a Bed and Breakfast called Vineyard View and were touring the wineries and vineyards before check in. This is an easy thing to do given that you could spit in any direction and hit no less than three wineries/vineyards. True to its name, the B&B was situated next to the Cathedral Ridge winery, which made it convenient as a starting point.

I enjoy wine tastings. One of my goals in life is to become a true wine snob. I want to have a deep understanding of mouth feel, bouquet, and be able to make comments like, “The 2004 is a precocious little vintage, full-bodied with a spicy start that makes you stand up and take notice but with a hint of raspberry and currant at a delightfully smooth finish” with a straight face.

At Cathedral Ridge, we bought four bottles of wine, which started a trend for the day. We moved on to Hood River winery, at the top of a half mile gravel road with a tasting room situated in one corner of a large equipment shed almost as an afterthought. A guy who looked like Hal Linden grudgingly served up the tastings. When I commented on the difference between his tasting room and the one at Cathedral Ridge, which was elegantly appointed and had no less than three young, attractive women serving the dozen or so rich yuppies from Portland, he flatly stated that his was a ‘working vineyard’. This led to a discussion of vineyards versus wineries and how anyone with Photoshop and a printer can design a label, slap it on a bottle and fill the bottle with wine made elsewhere. One trend he despaired of is how grapes grown in other states are being shipped to Oregon, made into wine and marketed as Oregon wine. He gave me some good tips on what to look for on the bottle to be sure the wine is what it says it is. Because there’s no law that says you HAVE to use Oregon grapes to make wine that is sold as Oregon wine. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission doesn’t care, you see. I ended up buying a Merlot from him. I had no choice. When I took a taste of it, the wine punched it’s way through my mouth and down my throat. How could I not buy a bottle of that after being beaten into submission.

We left Hal and moved on to the Phelps Creek tasting room. This tasting room was nicely appointed with well done Impressionist paintings of vineyards on the walls and shelves of wine merchandise for purchase at ridiculous prices. After speaking with Hal I was wary as we stepped up to the bar, but one of the two hostesses immediately placed wine glasses in front of us and took charge, pouring us wines in succession from white to red. I don’t like most Chardonnays, but we ended up getting two of theirs, they were that good.

We then climbed into a van for the trip up to the Pinot Noir release party at the Phelps Creek vineyards. Up there, we had a ‘reserve’ pinot that was quite good, but then they told us about the Estate pinot. I had my first taste of that and the heavens opened, angels sang and hell froze over. I don’t have the words to describe how good this wine was, yet. For me it was a visceral reaction. When I took that first sip, it was like hearing The Beatles Revolver for the fist time, or eating Belgian chocolates off the flat stomach of a nude super model (not that I’ve ever done that, but one can imagine). I just knew this was a GOOD wine.

Needless to say, we bought a bottle of that. Who wouldn’t want to take home a bottle of heaven.

John Stossel makes sense.

Cousin Elisabeth!

Have fun today.

There’s a loose connection between these two items, a tenuous one manufactured from my deep and abiding hatred for all things Democrat. Perhaps the connection is that this post discusses why a specific segment of the population which historically votes Dem should stop and this post discusses a specific Democratic presidential contender and his desire to force universal healthcare down our throats.

So what we’re doing here is going from the general to the specific in our connections. Beyond that, I’m sure any connections are meaningless.

Oh, but I do love this quote about Edwards (h/t Kim du Toit for posting the quote and the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler for having a guest poster with a give for language):

“You’re still a two-bit malpractice shyster that channels dead babies and panders juries into millions of dollar punitive damages, at the cost of good doctors’ careers. A left-wing socialist, frothing moon-bat that plays every class divisive card in the book without shame, while hiding behind the skirts of your wife’s unfortunate illness for insulation.”

It seemed appropriate given what the Althouse post discussed.