Vintage Tuesday - Wine, Food, Travel and Insanity

You understood that correctly,  Ace Hardware and wine tasting.  What a combination.  It all started as we were on one of our pilgrimages to Napa, California to hit the “wine trails.”  We began touring a few vineyards when they opened at 10 AM (I think that’s why they invented the phrase “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” - it was only mid-morning where we where)  Who needs to begin the day with coffee anyway?  

After winding our way up North on the Silverado Trail, we stopped at one of our favorite smaller wineries (where you are not overrun by tour busses and you can talk with the owner)  The winery is called Vincent Arroyo located at 2361 Greenwood Ave. Calistoga, CA  www.vincentarroyo.com   They are known for their Petite Sirah which lived up to the expectations that day.  Their wines are a bit out of Vintage Tuesday’s low budget range but if you are looking for something special, check them out.

When we said our goodbyes with Vincent (yes we met him) and placed our order to have a case shipped back home, we headed for downtown Calistoga which is North of Napa.  Calistoga looks a little like Mayberry and we were expecting Aunt Bea to meet us with jars of her homemade grape jelly.  Instead we saw an Ace Hardware Store with a sign out front “Wine Tasting Today”  The people here know better things to do with grapes than make jelly.  Trixie and I were stunned since we never saw a wine tasting at a hardware store.  We looked at each other and thought “I have a feeling were not in Kansas anymore Toto”  Actually Trixie has never been to Kansas and I have only been there a few times - lots of good steaks - they must drink a lot of Red Wine in Kansas!

This turned out to be one of those perfect days.  Mayberry - I mean Calistoga, was having it’s annual Calistoga Wine, Jazz and Blues Festival to celebrate the end of the crush (lots of people with purple feet after the crush).  All of the different shops (and even hardware stores) had a local vintner and many had jazz and blues bands.  You pay for a glass and a few tickets and just wander down the streets stopping in any place that tickles your fancy (as they say in Mayberry).  Everyone was walking around holding a wine glass, trying various wines and listening to jazz and the blues echo down the street.  They hold this festival every year during mid autumn (purple feet season) and if you are ever in the Napa / Sonoma / San Francisco area, check the date at their website www.calistogajazz.com  This is a must do and we will be returning in 2008.  If you go to Calistoga, say hi to Andy, Opie and Aunt Bea for us!

Angus and Trixie

Australia Day is today January 26 and you might think… so what!  Yup, I would agree except, Australia has some great wine.  Not to mention Trixie and I visited the Yara Valley near Melbourne a few years ago with some of our best friends that live there.  Australians like to use some pretty  funny names for their towns like Dooboobetic and Wandong (I’m not making this up!) so I guess Yara is a pretty simple name.  Being from the United States, I’m sure our places also sound strange to them. New York, New Jersey, New Bern, New Bedford we sure use “New” a lot where is Old York? uh oh I am rambling. 

Australia has some great wines at reasonable prices - and they even share them with us in the United States - that shows how nice they are!  The first bottle we are going to try (well it’s not the first bottle we ever had, I think it is actually number 5,493 but who’s counting) Anyway, it  is the first one for the forum.  It is Yellow Tail Reserve - 2006 Shiraz.  I remember my first glass of Yellow Tail years ago when they first had it at my local store.  It was only a few dollars and….   We’ll they have come a very long way. 

This was a really nice Shiraz.  It tasted fruity with the berry flavor that you would expect from a Shiraz.  It was also quite mellow or the technical term that I like to use is it did not have a bite.  You know what we mean, wines that have a bite cause you to kick the floor and grab some salt and a lime.  The cost was reasonable for a wine like this.  Although it was on the higher end of our low budget goal, at around $12 a bottle it was worth every bit of it.

Cheers to our friends down under!

Angus and Trixie