Happy Birthday, Thud!

My big brother has a very special birthday today and I am hoping he has a fantastic day.  I would have loved to be with him, and I did try.  But with many airlines not wanting to fly Americans (and people who just live in America, me) anywhere because Yanks have misbehaved a tad with regards to Covid-19, I found myself stuck stateside.
Here we both are in more carefree times.  Thud was having his junior school (primary) photograph taken and was asked if he had any younger siblings in infant school; he did, me.  I remember jumping out of my chair with excitement when he came into my classroom.  Good memory.
So cheers and all the best to the person who got me into wine in the first place.  Bottoms up, Thud!

A rocket ride.

It is Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes Night) here in Blighty.  I see lots of fire, fireworks, goodies and wine in my very near future.
The Wanted Zin, a 2017 "Italian Zinfandel aged in American oak," is Thud's choice of wine for this evening's festivities.  Vinified from grapes sourced from Puglia (the 'heel' of Italy's 'boot'), The Wanted Zin is produced by Orion Wines (a company based in Lavis, Trentino), whose business plan is to "produce the best and most interesting wines possible at fair prices."  What is there not to like about that?  Sounds good to me.
The back label exhorts the imbiber to, "Be daring and let this wine take you for a ride."  Seems like I may be in for a bit of a vinous-voyage with this one.

Pizza, beer and wine.

Thud's pizza oven gets awfully hot.  I risked life and limb to get this photograph, as it was super, super toasty.  And that high heat is the reason that the pizzas are ready to eat after just 90 seconds of cooking.  Simply fabulous.  Copious amounts of Peroni aided Thud and his culinary-accomplice, Monkey, in the making of a dozen pizzas, mostly with all different toppings.  I polished off a bottle (well, not the entire bottle) of Amalaya, Blanco De Corte, 2016 Torrontés-Riesling (Calchaquí Valley, Argentina) with my pizza-dinner.  The wine paired well with most of the pizzas, but not the Thai Chicken one.  But that's OK, there were plenty of other pizzas that did pair with this Argentine-quaffing wine.  Yum.

Now that's what I call food!

Subtitle: In praise of the humble jam butty.  I am from Northern England where a 'butty' is very definitely food (especially the two butty varieties, 'bacon' and 'chip').  Simply bread and jam, the individual components of a jam butty are equally as important.  However the star of the butty in the photograph was Thud's homemade damson jam, a jar of which I brought back from Blighty with me in April, and which I just finished this morning.  I am crying as I type.
Incidentally, and I may have mentioned this before, damson is one of my favourite descriptors that I often find in Cabernet Sauvignon.  Of course, I don't get damson in all Cabs, the same way as I don't get violets in all Cabs.  The only person I have met in the U.S. to grasp damson as a wine descriptor was my professor at Napa Valley College, Dr. Stephen Krebs.  Dr. K. had travelled widely in Europe, whilst doing research for Jancis Robinson, and had tasted this type of plum for himself.
Speaking of food, recently all the staff at TWWIAGE, regardless of department, had to undergo a educational training session in food hygiene and safety, (we did last year also).  The Food Safety Modernization Act (FMSA) was signed into law in January 2011 (by President Obama) and made extensive changes to laws governing food safety.  The FSMA focus changed from responding to food contamination to preventing food contamination.  (Everybody agrees that keeping pathogens out of food is a good thing, right?)  Under this new-ish law, even "low risk" facilities, such as wineries, must be inspected within 7 years of the Act becoming law.  That means that for the past 2 years the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stepped up its inspections of wineries.  Hence our training session: FDA agents may show up at TWWIAGE at anytime.
Now, under Federal law, wineries are considered "food manufacturing plants."  But unlike other food manufacturing, the fermentation process that is the essence of wine is also very efficient in killing the very pathogens that would make folks sick.  Due to wine's elevated levels of acidity and alcohol the only microorganisms that can survive in wine are yeasts, lactic bacteria and acetic bacteria.  My take on food borne pathogens is an over-simplification, I admit, but it is this type of simple stuff that gets caught up in bureaucratic red tape.  All.  The.  Time.
I don't believe wine is a food.  I generally think of food as something you can get your teeth into, like meat and potatoes (or a jam butty).  Man cannot live on wine alone because it isn't food, in fact too much of it will kill a person, or at the very least will give the over-imbiber a very unhappy liver.  Wine is a companion to a meal, not a meal in itself.
Our tax dollars at work.

Friday night wine.

My journey to England was fantastic.  Well, the connections and timing, that is.  The transatlantic portion of my trip was super bumpy.  I have never experienced such turbulence on a flight, it didn't bother me at all.  After decompressing for a couple of days, Thud treated me to a really nice wine on Friday night (paired with the best wood-fired oven pizzas).  He'd purchased it from my favourite shop, Marks & Spencer.
The Amalaya, Blanco De Corte, 2016 Torrontés-Riesling (Calchaquí Valley, Argentina) was delicious; crisp, fruity, aromatic and refreshing.  Ever so slightly off-dry, the blend worked well with the acidity of the tomato sauce and especially with the crispy pancetta pizza.  Yum and yum.
It's good to be home.

Just because 9...

...Today would have been Joey Ramone's 66th birthday.  And also because it is 40 years to the day that Thud actually met The Ramones, in Liverpool, on May 19th 1977.  That particular day was Joey Ramone's 26th birthday.  Thud still owns The Ramones t-shirt he bought that same day from Joey's brother, Mickey Leigh.
It's not a secret that The Ramones are perhaps my favourite band ever, thanks to Thud, and it is no surprise to me that I enjoy their music now just as much as I did when I was a teenager. What has been a surprise to me is that, 40 years later, we now have a new generation of Ramones fans in the family.  Thud's nine, almost ten, year old daughter possibly knows more about The Ramones than me and her dad combined.  It's amazing to witness and it's a constant source of amusement to me.
Thud can be seen in the photograph on the right, or at least his leather jacketed-back can be seen, talking to Joey.  Great memories.  Happy birthday Joey.  And RIP.
Photographs courtesy of Ian Dickson.

A holiday from wine.

Not one drop of wine has passed my lips since I arrived in England.  I did not even have a glass of wine yesterday when I visited my favourite restaurant in Liverpool, the Casa Italia.  Why?  Well, mainly because I have been very busy.  Very busy.  Wine, to me, is meant to be enjoyed and savoured.  Wine is not meant to be consumed in a hurry, or because one feels like one has to have wine with dinner.  One doesn't.  Wine is nice, but it is not mandatory.
A couple of days ago, whilst planning with Mrs Thud what we were all going to have for dinner, Thud and I ventured into his wine room looking for a little inspiration amongst his collection (which is heavily Italian).  And then I came down with an awful cold.  Inevitable really, given my nieces and nephew have had colds and the temperatures have been hovering around 8-9° Celsius.  Brrr!  My sense of smell is now non-existent.  Apparently my personal wine-tasting equipment has gone on holiday also.

Rain stopped play.

Today was the day that the new Oakville Crossroad bridge, the bridge that makes it possible to reach Highway 29 from the Silverado Trail, was supposed to be completed.  I say supposed because, (like anything to do with government it seems), the bridge is not yet finished.  Shocker! Closed due to a small 4.1 earthquake that occurred on May 21st of last year, this was the first time I had driven up close to the bridge since the day before the temblor struck.  So, for the past 8 months, if I had had the sudden urge to treat myself to a latte, or a $15.00 bar of chocolate from the Oakville Grocery, I would have had had to endure an almost 17 mile round trip instead of the usual 3 miles.
Citing rainy weather (damn you, El Niño), the Napa County Public Works Department has said it needs several consecutive dry days so that it can finish striping the lanes, etc.  The new opening day, for the $5.2 million bridge, has yet to be announced.  Sigh.
I am thinking, perhaps, that if a few English workies had been on this particular construction project that the Oakville Crossroad bridge would have been finished on time.  If the English continually had to wait for rainy weather to be absent for several days on end we'd never get anything built.  Thud recently finished building this Gothic cottage.  There was no playing around, Thud built his bothy come rain or shine.

It's the first day of spring!

I know that today is the first day of spring because I checked that little factoid in my handy-dandy 2015 copy of Old Moore's Almanack.  I also happen to know that today is a good day to plant such things as asparagus, celery, brassicas, root vegetables and legumes, but only between the hours of 8.30 am to 12.55 pm, 1.20 to 2.40 pm and 3.05 to 4.10 pm Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).  Today is also a great day for me to go fishing (in the afternoon), and an even better day for me to bet on the dogs (if I just happen to be passing through Birmingham, England).  Good stuff.
Hang on a minute, didn't I just recently say that I had always wanted a copy of Old Moore's Almanack, but had never actually owned one? Well, as of yesterday, via the Royal and the US mails, I now have my very first copy of the annual publication that I always wanted when I was little thanks to my brother Thud.  Apparently, perhaps moved by my tale of woe, Thud decided he would rectify the decades old almanac-absence in his little sister's life.  Or perhaps he feels I need a bit of help in my current life, although it does say, in my personal daily guide (for Aries), that today my personal intuition and confidence should be strong enough for me to make successful decisions.  Cool, I should start by deciding whether to have salmon or prawns for dinner.
Of course, all these predictions and forecasts etc., are in GMT, so a little bit of mathematics will be required prior to me deciding whether or not I am going to plant, fish or gamble today. Thanks, big brother!