Wine Tasting like on "Sideways"

If you've seen the movie Sideways, then you may recognize some of the places we visited on our wine tasting weekend in the Santa Ynez Valley. We did a two-day trip and had a great time with good wines, food and company. We renamed each of the wineries that we visited and I thought I'd share these with you here, so maybe you can get some smiles out of them too. I'll also give my wine recommendations from this trip. As a note on this area, many of the wines here are French style wines because these grapes grow very well in this region as they do in France. We sampled a lot of Pinot Noirs, which are usually not my favorites, but were quite good from this region. The stronger Cabernets that Scott and I usually enjoy were not very good in this region, but the stronger Syrahs were very nice.









- Bridlewood (Dualing Horses) was the first winery that we visited and I wasn't overly impressed with any of the wines there.
- Rusack (Flowery Diamond) had a Pinot Noir (Santa Barbara County) that had a food flavor taste to it. :D
- Rideau (A Cajun Winery) had a wine called a Lagniappe Red (2005) that I really enjoyed. However, it was pretty pricey, so we didn't get any. The owner of this winery is from New Orleans and apparently they have certain days where she cooks food for everyone who comes to taste - too bad we missed out on that!
- Buttonwood (Retard or Doodle) had a very nice and intelligent guy named Bobby who served us some of our wines. I wasn't a fan of the whites here or even most of the reds, but they had a red Bordeaux called Trevin (2002) that we liked a lot. This is a mixture of their other 3 reds and this wine definitely shows some synergy (thanks, Collen!) The Cabernet Franc that was 35% of this mixture was renamed Tombstone Delight with a hint of Graveyard by us due to the earthyness (this was close to the end of our first day, by the way). They also had a 2003 Hawk Red that got a smiley based on my rating system. :)
- Kalyra (Malaria) wasn't one of our favorites. For one thing, the wine is all grown, made and bottled in Australia and then brought over here, so it didn't quite fit in with the area tastes that we were experiencing.
- Sunstone (Stoned sun) was our last winery of the first day and by far our favorite for this day. They had a very nice 2004 Syrah SBC and an even better 2005 Rapsodie du Soleil. The Rapsodie was 89% of the before-mentioned Syrah, but was even better with some Grenache, Mourvedre and Viognier added in. This winery had a great feel, as well as a guy with a guitar singing outside with a beautiful voice.













For dinner on the first night, we visited the Hitching Post, which was a favorite hangout in the movie Sideways. They are known for their steaks and steaks we did have! You can see some pictures here, including one very large piece of meat on the grill, but unfortunately this one didn't come to our table. We had a very nice time at this restaurant and found a very interesting hair do! I think a couple of names were thrown around for him, including Unicorn and Hair Island. There was a nice group of people at the table next to us making faces in our pictures, so I decided to take a picture of them and include on the blog because they were part of our experience! The girl in the middle on the left, we decided looked like Tina Fey and the guy in the middle on the right looked like our friend Alex. We named the guys Manboobs (I'm forgetting why now). Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed your trip as much as we did!










We didn't visit as many wineries on the second day, but they were all high quality for sure.
- Fess Parker (Davey Crockett) had some very nice wines, including a 2005 Chardonnay "American Tradition Reserve" that we liked a lot. We're not usually big fans of white wine, but this one was very nice - not too sweet. There were a couple of Pinot Noirs, the "Santa Barbara County" one we didn't really like, but the 2005 "American Tradition Reserve one was very good. Scott liked this one the most, but I liked even better the 2004 "The Big Easy" Syrah. It is named this because of its big dense taste, which I enjoyed very much. Although it was very dense, it wasn't overly tannony and finished quite well. They also had a very nice Syrah called "Rodney's Vinyard". Many smileys on this winery's sheet! :D
- Zaca Mesa (Storm Fields) was recommended to us by friends before going and we appreciated the recommendation. This winery just qualified for sustainable status, which means that they are growing in a more environmentally friendly way. They had a 2005 Roussanne, which was a white wine that we enjoyed very much. I guess Alex and Kris brought one to our Thanksgiving gathering because it went so well with turkey, but I missed out on that on Thanksgiving. We bought a bottle, though so I'll have to make another turkey just to enjoy this wine with! They also had a 2004 Estate Z Three, which is a blend of Syrah, Moervedre and Grenache that was excellent.
- Foxen (Rusty Anchor) was a cute winery right off the road and with a nice, rustic feel, but although our friends enjoyed the wine here a lot, we didn't love any of it.


- Our last winery was by far our favorite over the two days. Andrew Murray Vineyards usually just tastes their wines at a tasting room in town, but they had a special open house while we were there out in their wine warehouse with a lot of wine to taste, great food to munch on and live music that I really loved. And the best part... is that Andrew Murray was one of the people pouring our wine and answering our questions! He was incredibly nice and knew a lot about wine and impressed us all. He wasn't at all cocky and even allowed our group to go back and take a picture with him. I give this winery 5 stars! :D All of the wines here were extremely good, including the many Syrahs that we tasted. I think the best value was the 2005 Central Coast Syrah. For only $16, this had a lot of taste. Probably our other favorite was the 2005 Brave Oak Syrah. There was one extra not on the tasting list that was absolutely awesome and even rocked Josh's world, as he said. Andrew Murray was happy to hear this one, though a little shocked by the wording. :D This one was called a Watch Hill Syrah if I'm remembering correctly and it was probably on of the best ones we tasted on the whole trip.


We also visited the town of Solvang, which is designed like a little Danish town. We had a nice breakfast and I got a goofy picture with a Danish shoe. :D

Happy Thanksgiving!

Scott and I had a nice Thanksgiving with friends and tons of good food. No pictures of the food, but it included a deep fried turkey, huge ham and TONS of sides and deserts - YUMMY!!!!

Little Houston is growing!

Scott and I babysat last weekend for Monique and Josh's adorable little Houston, who is a little over 2 months old now. He's up to 11 pounds now and is super sweet! Here are some pictures of our time with him. I've put in a video too in case Monique's mom wants to watch! :D Or anyone else too. He's becoming to much more aware of things!

Thanksgiving Potluck at Work

As the self appointed social coordinator, I have been planning bi-monthly potlucks for my group at work. This Thanksgiving one was very yummy - we even had turkey!

Visit to Camp Randall Stadium!

We went back to Scott's college home town for the Wisconsin Badgers vs the number 12 Michigan Wolverines. It was a tough game, but the Badgers won, bringing them up to number 25 this week. These fan are so much fun - the entire town was preparing for the game with tailgating all morning and partying all night after the game. You would see red everywhere you went, along with all sorts of Badger wear. Scott's parents helped me stay warm by letting me borrow lots of warm Badger wear and I even matched Scott's dad in our custom-made jackets! Scott's mom bought Scott and his brother matching Badger hats, and they were the hit of all cameras that afternoon - too cute! My favorite part of the game, though I did love watching the Badgers win, was the 5th quarter. The Wisconsin band is really quite amazing and after the game, it's tradition that they come out onto the field and do their thing. Their thing includes playing, dancing and just being FUN! Here are some pictures so that you can see a little bit of this fanage (my made up word).

Book Reviews

Writing about Collapse made me decide to write about some of the other books I've read over the last year since I last did a book review - so here goes!


Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has to be my favorite book over the last year. Gilbert's writing style was so good and this story even better. It's the story of a woman taking a year trip after a bad divorce so that she spent 4 months in Italy (eating and enjoying all things aesthetic), 4 months in India (praying and meditating at an Ashram) and 4 months in Indonesia (loving!). My favorite was the part in India because of the amount she learned about herself, but I have other girlfriends who have preferred the other parts. I think just about any woman (and probably many men) would love this book, so I highly recommend it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini was another wonderfully written book that tells an amazing story. Hosseini is the auther of Kite Runner, which I haven't read yet, but which has reached #1 on all the top sellers lists. A Thousand Splendid Suns is the story of two women in Afghanistan who come together under less than desirable circumstances. It tells of the ways that the people in this country have been affected by these wars, both negatively and positively and really makes you think and question some beliefs about the wars that you may currently have. I recommend this book to all women both as a wonderful story of women and the ways that they are able to live through terrible circumstances with love still in their hearts and as the story of what is going on in the Middle East through these recent times.


Jon Krakauer has been getting a lot of publicity lately with his book Into the Wild being made into a movie (which I've heard is great but have yet to see it). I haven't read that one yet, but I finished Into Thin Air a few months back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's his true story of climbing Mount Everest during one of the deadliest seasons of all times. The way it is written keeps you constantly interested and wanting to know what's going to happen next. Even if you are not into climbing, this is a great and thrilling read.


Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons by Lorna Landvik was one book that I went into thinking that it would be an enjoyable, but pretty thoughtless chick book read. But it was a lot more than that! It's a great story of a group of women who start a book club when they are pretty young and keep it going for 30 years! The stories of these women in their lives with each of their growing and living pains brought out a lot of my own emotions and showed me a lot about my own life. It's written very well and is easy to read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't recommend this one to any guys, but definitely recommend it to all girls.
AND.... it's inspired me to finally start a book club - I've been wanting to be part of one for a long time, but I'm going to do it for sure this time. So any girls in San Diego that want to be a part of it - let me know! I was thinking of maybe starting with this book since it inspired me! :D


A really good friend of mine convinced me to read Living History by Hillary Clinton and I'm really glad I did. It's not a wonderfully written book and the transitions between one subject and another are not very smooth, but it was good for me to learn about Hillary Clinton. The sections that were full of politics and people were not so interesting to me, but her travels around the world and her own political work were very interesting. I actually didn't realize how qualified that she is to work in politics. She has done a lot, including during her law school years, her time as an attorney, her time while Bill Clinton was in office and her time as a Senator and I was quite impressed with her resume! Of course, the book is going to be written from her point of view and written so that it brings about the most positive view of her, but I was very happy to learn about her and her beliefs and views, etc. A lot of people are super opposed to her and I think you should read this book to open your eyes to what you may not have seen before!


The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho was a very interesting read and not quite what I expected. It's a simple story about a shepherd boy who travels from his home of Spain into the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the pyramids. The points in the book are pretty hidden and not at all obvious if you are just reading the words, but the point that it does pull out is really a good one. It can help us all see that our lifetime searches for worldly goods may not turn out to be what we expect and will hopefully bring out discoveries of treasures within ourselves. If you like a book with a little more depth and one that will make you think about your life and the reasons you do the things you do, pick this one up.

Darkness Visible by William Styron is a very well written book about depression. The first half of this book was very hard for me to get into, but once I got into it, I very much enjoyed the story of a man who suffered with severe depression. If you have suffered with this terrible disease yourself, this book will show you a story of someone else who has been in the deepest depths and will make you feel like you share an experience, but will also offer you hope for the future. If you know someone else who has suffered from depression, this book can show you perhaps a glimpse of what people feel in these darkest times. I thought this book would be very depressing and would bring me down, but instead, I felt like it offered hope.


The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John Crawford was a great story from a soldier who was over in the Iraqi war. It's pretty horrific to know what he experienced and how war can forever affect soldiers who are there (Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons visits this subject as well). This is a book that all Americans should read to know truths about Iraq that we don't see on the news or in politics.