Saturday we drove to Livermore to pick up our wine futures at the Retzlaff Winery. Instead of a wine club where they send you a couple of bottles several times each year you buy a case of either red or white wine at their futures price. When the wine is released you go to the winery, sample your choices, and select how many of each wine you want to make up your case. They also had barbeque catered for the people who bought futures.
I had purchased the red wine futures back in September so I made my case selection from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the Cab/Merlot blend. I wasn’t impressed at all with the Cab, I thought the blend was pretty good, and the Merlot was fabulous. I took 8 bottles of the Merlot and 4 of the blend. I also bought red wine futures for next year.
The Retzlaff web site http://www.retzlaffwinery.com/ doesn’t have an updated order form on it (they still have the Noah Merlot listed – good, but not as good as the Retzlaff), so I recommend calling or emailing them to get some of their Merlot.
We also stopped at the
Concannon winery to pick up some white wine and saw that they had some red and white Rhone style wine on sale. Both were quite drinkable so we bought some of that as well. It’s also good for recipes that call for wine. Now we don’t have to use the expensive stuff in cooking. Remember: never cook with wine you wouldn’t drink.
When the parents were here over Christmas we took them to Los Gatos. While we were there I bought a risotto cookbook and on Saturday evening I made risotto for the first time ever. The recipe I selected had fresh spinach leaves, a goat’s milk/sheep’s milk feta (the recipe called for goat’s milk cheese, but I changed it a little), fresh Parmesan, white wine (conveniently purchased earlier that day at Concannon) and onions. It was great.
We sampled the Star Wars wine that I talked about at
http://franksblog.hofer.us/346. It had a nice apple juice flavor but really didn’t have the complexity of other chardonnays in that price range. So, we rate it drinkable but over-priced.
Sunday we went shopping for stuff we’d need for our new puppy, Max. We’re flying to Utah on Friday rent a 4-wheel drive SUV, and will drive back on Sunday with the puppy. It should be about a 12-hour drive from Ogden back to the bay area. My only concern is the weather through Donner Pass. So far the long-range forecast looks OK.
When we were out buying puppy stuff we bought a
Gentle Leader for The Devil Dog™ Lisa. When we have been taking her for a walk she pulls pretty hard and you really don’t want to try to hold back a 70+ pound dog.
The Gentle Leader goes around her snout and neck. The theory is that when she pulls on the leash she gets pressure on her snout that says, “Hey, I’m your boss” and pressure on the back of her neck that tells her to relax. She hated it at first but as the walk went on got used to it. It really worked well and isn’t cruel like a choke collar – the pulling stopped.
When we got home I was wondering if she’d let me put it back on her after we had taken it off. Lisa didn’t put up a fight at all when I put it on her a second time so it looks like the pulling problem is solved.
Stumble it!