Cecilia goes to work too

These are pictures I took last week of Cecilia helping us lees filter the Cranberry.  Having the girls at work is great, I love being with them, having some extra time with them one on one, but it can be a bit of a challenge, especially when it comes to serious talks with Dad, or conversations on the phone with important people.  It's a learning experience for them. =)

Barrel Sales

My brother, Joe and I took a trip to Napa in early December to sell some of his hand crafted Missouri oak barrels.  It was a whirlwind trip, full of coffee, wine, and focus (and a few long showers for me with no kids banging on the door.)  We stayed at our cousin, Mark's, hotel in downtown St. Helena.  There are worse business trips. =)  Joe is an easy traveling partner and it was nice to spend a few extra moments with him. We visited a few nice wineries, and I had a mini Fresno State reunion.

 My old classmate, Sara, is one of the winemakers at Peju.

 The Hotel

 Joe unwrapping his barrels in the Hotel common area.

 The barrel room at Ovid was magical.

 A nice view of the Golden gate Bridge and San Francisco behind

 Mark, his youngest daughter, Lucy, and his wife Kris

 the outside of the Hotel

 the inside of the Hotel

 Sara amid her barrels at Peju

 The view from Ovid

 Mark, Joe and I at Ovid

 Ovid tasting room

 Joe enjoying himself at Ovid

 outside of Ovid

The Wydown Hotel's Open House/Meet the Cooper night

One of the best parts of the trip was when I struck up a conversation with the lady behind me at Dean and Deluca waiting for a coffee, and she ended up being the owner of Ovid winery and invited us up to the tasting room.  It was very exclusive, very expensive, and all three of us were on a high, not only from the wine and the view, but sometimes wine can be so exciting and make you feel so alive.

We went out there ultimately for an Open House/Meet the Cooper night at the Hotel.  Joe's barrels were well received and he has already sold some.  Very exciting to see him succeed at something he loves.

Free Help

Cecilia helped us pick the last of the grapes.  She did a good job.  She bundled up, brought her ponies, played in the tractor, and even picked a few grapes.  She's fun to be around. =)

These Are My People

Easter in Northern California

Charlotte's third plane trip!

Cecilia asleep on my lap on the plane, I just love her curls

Will fell asleep in the car on the way to our first winery, Plumpjack, so Melissa found a chair and held him while he slept and we brought her samples of wine.

Miss Blue Eyes

Family of 4 at Pine Ridge Winery

It was drizzling, but I really wanted a photo or two of the kids in front of the vineyard with the mustard cover crop

Will likes to run towards the camera- what a crack up!

Melissa and Charlotte

We spent the night up in Napa playing jump on John.

It's nearly impossible to get all three kids looking at the camera and smiling. This was our first attempt at Cliff Lede Winery.

A vision in yellow

Easter Morning; Will and his spiderman eggs and batman pajamas

Cecilia's first real Easter egg hunt- so cute!

Snuggle

Easter Morning- another lousy attempt to get a great picture of all 3 kids

Melissa and Will

Melissa and Cecilia

Somewhere in Middle America

Dad and I went to Wisconsin last week and bought 12,000 pounds of cranberries to ferment for next years Cranberry wine and Mary let me put on her hip boots and get in the bog. Have I told you how beautiful Wisconsin is in the fall? Every year I fall more in love with a state that I would have always guessed is just like Missouri. Those coastal state people don't know what they're missing about the middle part of our nation. Shh, don't tell them, it's our little secret.

Guess I won't forget that anytime soon.

Bigger Than a Bread Basket?

This picture cracks me up. This is Katie from Peaceful Bend Winery. You might have seen her post a comment here or there. Last weekend we were at Tan Tar A for the annual Midwest Wine and Grape Conference, and Monday night was the Grand Banquet where we had a 3 hour, 6 course meal, each course paired with a different wine. We were honored to have the Sainte Genevieve Winery Blackberry served as the aperitif. Anyway, Dad, Lesa and I sat with Katie and her husband Clyde and a couple other people, and we laughed the night away. I always think it is particularly funny when you are supposed to be proper and instead you are inappropriate. We spent way too much of the evening talking about the Bacon Bra. I commented that the bacon was raw and my husband would never go for that, so we spent the rest of the evening trying to devise a way to fry the bacon but still have it in the shape of a bra...a small collander perhaps, a handheld strainer? Clyde suggested Canadian bacon. We laughed and laughed until we cried. Lesa overheard what we were giggling about and then Dad asked what the commotion was, and Lesa told him she'd have to tell him later. This was definently not a conversation for Dad.

In the midst of all our silliness, Katie remembered our game and wanted to play too, so we took the napkin full of bread out of this bread basket, and put it on her head. Later when Dad asked for another roll, we just put the napkin and the rolls back into the basket and hoped there weren't any hairs that made the trip.

At the end of the evening we decided we should all sit together next year, and I hope they weren't just drunk when they said that.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Homecoming

I'm back from my trip to Santa Rosa to judge wine with women. I had a good time. I traveled with Patty from Stone Hill Winery and she was a fun traveling partner. We met lots of great women in our field, drank lots of wonderful wine, went on another perfect hike with Ann Noble and had some fabulous food. The weather was amazing also. All in all, though, I am so happy to be home. I accepted their invitation last year when I was pregnant, and I didn't realize how hard it would be to leave home after having a baby. Half of me couldn't believe I was there, how could I leave her, but the other
half of me was proud that I could think about something else. She is so demanding, and I love being there for her, and it's sometimes hard to think outside her world. I don't want to be that mom who swarms around her child every single solitary second of the day, but it would be easy to because I love her so much. I want to have my own identity besides Cecilia's mom, but she's so much fun, and I like being with her so much. I guess all moms feel this way, or all working moms?

Want to see some pictures?
California state flower- the poppy

Dr. Ann Noblelavender and vineyards in Carnerospoppies and vineyard in Carneros

Red and Green

Dad and I took our annual trip to Wisconsin for cranberries on Monday and Tuesday. Here's a random cranberry floating amongst the green cranberry leaves.

Homemade Well Wishes

Just like me,, my friend, Katie, over at Peaceful Bend Vineyards has a blog. This week, she sent this handmade card, and I thought it was so sweet.

Thanks, Katie.

This is a picture of our scribe, Pat, myself, Allen Jackson, and Dr. Fred Nury

I mentioned earlier that I went to California again last week. This trip was much quicker and much less enjoyable, mostly because of the airlines. They cancelled my flight, sent me to a different airport, lost my luggage, yatta yatta yatta. I did judge some nice wines, so I can't complain too much. The sweepstakes winner of the Pacific Rim International Wine Competition was J. Lohr Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004 from Paso Robles, and I am happy to tell you you can get this wine in the grocery store for ~$13. My panel consisted of a guy named Allen Jackson from Canada, and a retired professor from Fresno State, Fred Nury. I saw some old friends, had some nice food, tried not to be too annoyed by my luggage, or lack there of, barely left the hotel, and all in all happy to come back home.

You Are A Huge Nerd

This video is one of the funniest things on the internet, and probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen. It never gets old. John and I quote it quite often. This is the first and only thing I have seen Triumph the Insult Dog in, but I love it. Matt, you would also love it. Anyway, I'm bringing it up because today I did what John (and I) would consider a pretty nerdy thing. I talked on the Martha Stewart Station on Sirius Satellite Radio to Gary Vaynerchuk. Two of my favorite things wrapped up in one. My head almost exploded.

I have an ongoing discussion; disagreement, about corks, or the smelling of. I had dinner last fall with some wine people and one of the ladies said she could smell cork taint by smelling the cork, which I thought was absurd. I was never taught to smell the cork, in fact, I was taught that smelling the cork was useless. So, I disputed that she couldn't smell cork taint on the cork, and then someone else at the table agreed with her. I couldn't believe it. Ever since that fateful night, I have been obsessed with the cork smelling debate. So, today on the radio, I asked Gary Vaynerchuk what he thought, and I didn't tell him what I thought first, and he agreed with me, that smelling the cork is part of wine snobbery and is "phoney baloney."

I'll be the first to back down if I'm not 100% sure about something, but when I am sure and not believed, I beat the topic like a dead horse. I should probably put this discussion away now, because, you see, I won ...but I won't. Next time you want to get me all fired up, smell the cork. I dare you.

The Longest Post To Date

I have returned, very fresh and vitalized and very happy to be home. I had a wonderful trip. Want to hear all about it?

I started in Santa Rosa, which is the major town in the Sonoma Valley, to judge at the National Women's Wine Competition. This was the first year for this competition, and it had its ups and downs. The best part, by far, for me, was my panel. So, during the competition you are assigned a panel of three of four people that will taste all the same wines as you, and together you decide if a wine is medal worthy, and if so, what medal it should receive. My panel consisted of Cynthia Goddeau who is a sommelier at a Mario Batali restaurant in New York City, Diane Teitelbaum who is the wine buyer for American Airlines, and Ann Noble who was the dominant professor of wine in America and who invented the Wine Aroma Wheel which revolutionized descriptions of wines. I had met Ann Noble when I went to UCDavis to check out the school. She seemed intimidating and stern there. She was anything but at the wine judging. I had a fabulous time with her. She is very high energy and brilliant. She and I went on a hike together overlooking Santa Rosa on the first day.



There were parts of this wine judging I didn't care for (some of those women were so uptight they stressed me out)(plus Gina Gallo wasn't even there) and since it was the first year they kind of made up the rules as they went along, but it was all worth the opportunity I was granted to hang out with Ann Noble. She said she thought I was decisive but nice about it, and that I would have been one of her star students had I attended Davis, but understood why I chose Fresno.



This is my panel; myself, Ann (holding her glass upside down), our two volunteers in the middle (I don't remember the guys' name, but the girl's name was Vicky and she is holding the Wine Aroma Wheel), Diane, and Cynthia.

From there I headed down to the Bay Area to hang out with Melissa, John's sister, and her family. Their son looks a lot like John, I think.





We had a really great day at Half Moon Bay, I even got a little sunburned. (Not too bad, Christy) It felt so good to get my toes in the sand, and the sun on my back. Plus, their son, Will, is a doll. There is a tide pool there, and Melissa taught us all about the sea urchins, and anemones, and snails, and starfish.



We saw a real live starfish!

From there I spent the night in Santa Cruz with Ron, and Tyler, and Eleni and her husband (could be long term boyfriend) Chris.



Myself, Ron and Tyler at the Santa Cruz lighthouse

These are all old Fresno State classmates. Good times, good memories. Ron and I are still really close, he accompanied John and I in Europe to see Susanne. Tyler and his family are starting their own winery, Grace Patriot Wines. Santa Cruz is probably the most libral place I have ever been, it even surpasses Berkeley in my mind. Everything is organic, and they are very focused on the enviroment there. California in general is much more "green" minded than most people I know in Missouri. We had to get something small for dinner that they forgot, so Chris and I headed to the corner store, which was exactly like a tiny little Whole Foods or Trader Joes. Made me realize today when I was grocery shopping how full of crap and things that are bad for us our grocery stores are. Gross.

Last but not least I headed to the New World International Wine Competition, where I have judged 7 times before. My Red Raspberry won a Gold and Best of Class, which is very exciting. (I don't have the results back from the Women's judging.) I had a very enjoyable, quick panel that consisted of the head salesman for Gallo, who promoted and sold wine in Europe for 14 years, (he is retired now) and a man who owns a Wine bar and was a wine broker in Salt Lake City.



Don't think for one second that there aren't more pictures of my trip to come in the next few days. Now, after all that wine, I must go have one of my wonderful husband's marvelous beers. ;)