Archive for the 'Wine Babble' Category
(Chronologically Listed)
The Annual Garage Sale
It is time for some wine “babble”! Yea, babble. Just some straight nonsense talk about enjoying some wine.
Hi there Wine Lovers! What an exciting weekend I had, hope you had a great one too! As I sit typing this I am enjoying a glass of Chapplett Cabernet Sauvignon to wrap up the weekend. I am inside this evening as thunderstorms threaten to strike any moment. You may think what I have to say about the weekend is a little strange, but it was one of my most favorite annual event weekends- it was our annual garage sale. Yes, garage sale. Most folks probably dread the thought of garage sales as it is a lot of work to have one, but our family and friends have a great time. We all put our stuff together to create one sale, we make signs, we have breakfast, lunch, drinks and more. We set up our cooler in the garage and start with beers around 11:00 and some wine a little later. Our customers consistently ask to join the party or if drinks are for sale. We had Smoking Loon Chardonnay and St Clement Sauvignon Blanc at the sale, with some Hanna Sauvignon Blanc after the sale while swimming. We always manage to pull in some big crowds, everyone has a profitable day and most of all we have a great time. We made close to a $1,000, with the most profitable couple pulling in a little over $200.
After the sale and clean up we headed to the backyard for some swimming and relaxation. As I said earlier we had some Hanna Sauvignon Blanc after the sale, then as a quick shower passed over us, we enjoyed a Raymond Burr Chardonnay. Our sister and brother in law were staying the night, and we had others join us for dinner so there was quite a bit more quality wine enjoyed. We also had a variety of foods with our son pleasing the crowd with clams and later on some specially prepared venison meat on the grill. There was shrimp cocktail, lobster and crab cakes and finally some grilled salmon and small red potatoes to finish. During the course of the evening we indulged in some fantastic wines along with our foods. We certainly rewarded ourselves for the hard days work with some Bremer Family Cabernet, a Silver Oak-Alexander Valley while sitting by our outdoor fireplace. We then enjoyed a midnight swim including lots of trips down the slide into our inground swimming pool and finished off the evening with a bottle of Frank Family Zinfandel. In hindsight, it was too late to be opening a bottle as good as Frank Family that late in the evening, but it happens sometimes. Plus it wasn’t me, it was my sister that opened that one. Of course, I didn’t stop her though. Another great time, as usual!
The wedding
It is time for some wine “babble”! Yea, babble. Just some straight nonsense talk about enjoying some wine.
We are back from a long weekend at the Jersey shore. If you are from New Jersey or the surrounding area you probably know we refer to it as being “down the shore”. That is NJ slang for being at the beach. We were at Long Beach Island, exit 63 off the parkway. We stayed in a town called Ship Bottom on the Island and attended a family wedding. We arrived Friday early afternoon and hit the beach for a while before rehearsal dinner, but of course, we left room for some wine between the beach and dinner. We hung out on the balcony of our sister and brother in law’s room overlooking the beach, yelling to the rest of our friends and family still on the beach while we poured some really nice whites. First we had one of our favorite summertime whites, the Hanna Sauvignon Blanc, then we tried a white that returned to NJ from our Napa trip last month. A 2007 Venge wine called Bianco Spettro (White Ghost) that was more awesome than we remembered it to be, with flavors of citrus, apple, pear and even key lime jumping out at you. We were all very happy with that purchase. You know sometimes what tastes good in Napa Valley doesn’t always taste so good when you return home, but no dissappoinment here! The rest of the weekend was busy with lots of wine being consumed, if I told you all of it, you’d think we overindulged. I can tell you though, that there were some really enjoyable wines such as Bennett Lane Cabernet, Frank Family Zinfandel, and a great Frank Family Reserve Pinot Noir. There was plenty of beach time and lots of sunshine before the 5pm ceremony on the beach. After the ceremony we headed to a relatives yard for a picnic type reception outdoors under a huge tent. That brings me to share a funny highlight. Being the wine drinkers we are, we quickly searched out the help yourself bar and discovered some wines, but could not locate an opener. Acting resourcefully we quickly remembered the nearby liquor store where we could purchase an opener and while we were at it, we selected and purchased our own wine for the evening. That’s bad, right? Not really, we did save the bride and groom money and kept our box out of the way beside our table. All in all, a great weekend, a few tired people from our late nights and another one in the history books. Return soon for more summertime stories!
Published by admin on June 16th, 2008 | Filed under Wine Babble | Comment now »