Der Geschmack der Farben.

I arrived home in one piece.  My flight from SFO to Manchester, via Zurich, was without incident - very smooth and painless.
Now that I am home, I am in a state of amazement.  I have experienced better weather here in the past four days than all of 2019 in California and I have loved every minute of it.  Thing is, England is hard to beat when the sun is shining, it is just so pretty.  And so green.  Spring has always been my favourite season in Blighty.
Family OTW and I have busied ourselves with lots of activities; shooting, archery, bingo and other games.  Every meal has been outside, breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  Of note, yet another fabulous wood-fired pizza event (my sister-in-law's Thai chicken pizza could give California Pizza Kitchen a run for their money) at which I discovered that a particularly spicy pizza paired well with a Prosecco that Thud pulled out of his wine-stash.  Fun.
The Taste of Colours, kindly reproduced with the permission of Swiss Air (well, I'm sure they would have approved it if I'd asked), is not about the neurological trait synaesthesia.  Rather, the wine-article in my seat-pocket magazine maintained that there was a correlation between the colour of a wine and the way in which a wine is produced, even a vintage's growing conditions, with the qualities therefore inherent in a wine.  Not sure I totally buy the whole premise of the article as it's a little simplistic, besides I don't read German, but it made for some light, in-flight entertainment - a bit like the colour, Blasses Weissgelb.

Happy Easter, 2018.

Happy Easter!
Lots of chocolate, cake making, pie baking, happy kids, extended family, my first cup of coffee since February the 13th and a good Barolo with dinner; is there a better way to celebrate the culmination of Holy Week?  I think not.
This 2011 Peironte Barolo was showing a little age, but still had plenty of perfumey-plummy polish which paired beautifully with dinner.  Followed by Thud's blackcurrant pie and a slice of carrot cake (made by me), my tummy had a very satisfying Easter Sunday.  However, I still see lots of chocolate in my immediate future.  Yum!

Happy Yeaster, 2017.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist using the pun, Yeaster, supplied by the manufacturer of this Easter egg.  Titter, titter.
It is Easter Sunday and, as is the tradition in England, a lot of chocolate eggs have been exchanged: big, tasty chocolate Easter eggs.  My Lenten fast ended just before breakfast this morning with my first taste of chocolate since February.  Yum!
I may not have had a lot of fermented grape juice since I have been home, but Thud wanted to make sure that I still had something yeasty. So he bought me this Marmite egg to try.  Marmite is a spread made out of yeast; it is dark, sticky, smelly and extremely salty.  Lots of people love it, or hate it.  Thud and I never had Marmite when we were growing up, it wasn't something our Vinomum liked even, so we never acquired a taste for it.  I had cousins who liked Marmite and they would eat it spread on top of buttered bread.  Yuck!
The Marmite Easter egg tasted bizarre.  I wouldn't say that I hated it exactly, but Marmite flavoured chocolate is not something I would really want to eat again, (but I'll try anything once).  It was intensely salty.  If I wanted to be pretentious about it, I'd describe the taste as umami-like. Titter, titter, again.
Eat chocolate!

Happy Easter, 2016.

Happy Easter everyone!
Vinodog 2 wasn't quite sure about donning her new bunny ears this morning, perhaps the brown colour was a little too realistic. Nevertheless, here she is being all festive, well, sort of.  I think she looks a little humiliated.  Or maybe she is just disappointed - disappointed that she didn't get to have coffee and Cadbury's Creme Eggs for breakfast.
Eat chocolate!

Happy Easter, 2015.

Eggs for breakfast!  Yup, got up this morning and the first thing I did was stuff a Cadbury Creme Egg into my mouth.  Then it started to rain, so I ate another two.  Lent seemed awfully long this year.
Happy Easter everyone.
Eat chocolate!

Happy Easter, 2014.

V2 is all ears today, as she heard there are a lot of Cadbury Creme Eggs knocking about Vinoland.  V2 is a quick little dog, but not quick enough to get between me and my Creme Eggs.
Happy Easter to all.
Eat chocolate!

Happy Easter, 2013.

Happy Easter to one and all! 
I've never quite gotten into the American fascination with the Easter Bunny (separation of church and state, secularism, I get it), it's eggs and rebirth all the way for me baby!
I thought this photograph, which I took for my darkroom class last year, was sufficiently eggie for an Easter post.  I did a whole series of photographs using my neighbour's chickens and some other props; egg cup, rosemary, carving knife etc...it turned out a lot less weirder than it sounds, honest.  Well, I suppose you would've had to have been there!
Eat chocolate!

Happy Easter, 2012.

Happy Easter to everybunny!

Eat chocolate!

Happy Easter, 2011.

Happy Easter to all, from a chocolate filled Vinogirl, an English Cadbury Creme Egg (albeit made by Kraft now) and it's piddly, diminutive American cousin.

Eat chocolate!

A quick word from the Vinobunny.

A very Happy Easter to all.
Celebrate! Eat chocolate! Drink wine!

Liturgical libation.

Vinogirl is a 'cradle Catholic'.  In all the masses I ever attended in England I was never once offered wine at Communion.  In the USA every Catholic church has wine by the hogshead!  What?  Was my little parish too poor to pour?  I don't know.  Seeing as it is not a tradition I am familiar with, I don't partake.  It could have something to do with me being a little germophobic also.
However today, at Easter Sunday service, a co-worker from the winery joined me for the festivities. She does partake. Ever curious, I asked her whether or not the wine was red or white.  "Red" she answered...and then with a sly wink she added..."I think it was a Bordeaux".  That prompted Vinogirl to rethink her non-participation.  After all, I always love a good blind tasting!
Happy Easter!