Agent Winehiker sez: Exclusive Fantesca 2003 Cabernet on sale tomorrow only at The Wine Spies!

Date: Thu, May 1, 2008 Wine Tasting

Agent Red sent me a communique this afternoon. Though tersely worded, it was a topic of great importance. I knew I had to immediately share the news with you! BEGIN COMMUNIQUE I infiltrated Fantesca’s secret stash and nabbed a limited supply of their 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon You can’t buy this wine on the Fantesca.com website This wine will go on sale [...]

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Chewing the fat with Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford of Clif Bar Family Winery

Date: Thu, May 1, 2008 Wine Tasting

Last Thursday night at the Wine 2.0 Spring Fling at Crushpad in San Francisco (photoessay here), I chanced to meet Linzi Gay, Marketing Director of Clif Bar Family Winery. I was glad to meet her and get an advance taste of the Clif Bar wines she was about to pour. After all, I had just [...]

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Spend that tax refund, or Walk Hard?

Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2008 Wine Tasting

My hiking season is in full swing, and I’m now trekking 20 miles or so of trail each week. But it recently became apparent to me that if I am going to keep up this pace, I had better get a new pair of boots. A pair just like my old pair of Vasques, not [...]

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Purple Stains: scenes from Wine 2.0

Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2008 Wine Tasting

Wine 2.0 is, apparently, the confluence of wine and technology that results in purple teeth. Without a whole lot of fanfare, I hereby offer photos from last night’s Wine 2.0 Spring Fling at Crushpad in San Francisco. Many thanks to Cornelius Geary and Jeff Playter of Rad-Cru for hosting what many folks felt was a [...]

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Links for 2008-04-24 [del.icio.us]

Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2008 Wine Tasting

• I've been recruited as a spy!
  At the risk of blowing my cover, I want to alert you to a one-day-only 20% deal I've uncovered on an Oakville-appellation Cabernet Sauvignon. It's your mission, should you decide to drink it. But do it on April 25, 2008!
• Wine 2.0: The confluence of wine and technology
  I'm a registered trade member of Wine 2.0, and tonight I'm attending their gala in San Francisco, featuring winemakers, wine marketers, and wine bloggers from near and far.

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links for 2008-04-25

Date: Thu, Apr 24, 2008 Wine Tasting

\n \n I\’ve been recruited as a spy! \n At the risk of blowing my cover, I want to alert you to a one-day-only 20% deal I\’ve uncovered on an Oakville-appellation Cabernet Sauvignon. It\’s your mission, should you decide to drink it. But do it on April 25, 2008! \n (tags: wine cabernet deal spy spies oakville) \n \n \n Wine 2.0: The confluence of [...]

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I’ve been recruited as a spy!

Date: Thu, Apr 24, 2008 Wine Tasting

Oops - should I have said that? Whoa, I’ve just blown my cover!!! Uh-oh. Now I’ve gone and done it! Suddenly, it’s cloak and dagger time! Sheesh, I’m going to have to spend the remainder of my days constantly looking over my shoulder for Impy the Midget!! But seriously: there’s an organization called The Wine Spies, and [...]

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Central Coast Chardonnay wine tasting: an open invitation

Date: Wed, Apr 23, 2008 Wine Tasting

I am involved in a social community local to the San Francisco Bay Area called Bay Area Linkup. I’ve been hosting hiking events with this group for nearly five years and wine-tasting events for the past three, and I’ll continue to do so simply because I’m having the time of my life. While my hiking events [...]

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Links for 2008-04-21 [del.icio.us]

Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 Wine Tasting

• Al Gore's New Slideshow
  From TreeHugger: Uncle Sam is the Man With the Golden Arm (30 second video).
• Huffy Green Machine: Squirting Power Full Throttle
  From Ecofriend: Worried that your pasty-faced kid spends too much time playing Wii or Nintendo? Get him a Huffy Green Machine H2O Trike with Water Guns and you’ll soon have him (or her) spending time outside where he (or she) needs to be.
• Air Cars
  Is it time for cars to run solely on air? The folks at start-up Air Car Factories are betting on it.
• The Venus Project - The Redesign of a culture
  When one considers the enormity of the challenges facing society today, what does it mean to be human?
• Climate Change
  The EPA's Climate Change portal references a number of informative sites.

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Earth Day links

Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008 Wine Tasting

This Earth Day - and every day - consider asking yourself if you are truly changing your habits to do the things that really matter. Are you using low-flow shower heads? Are you considering the type and amount of packaging in the products you buy? Are you using canvas shopping bags for your groceries instead of paper or [...]

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Vashti

Date: Thu, Apr 17, 2008 Wine Tasting

Westerns are so much a part of American culture that it’s a rare channel-surfing moment when you won’t see at least one classic western on your TV. Like my dad before me, I cut my teeth on westerns - first in film and later in print - and they began to influence the outdoorsy person I [...]

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Some days you feed The Bull, some days The Bull feeds you

Date: Mon, Apr 14, 2008 Wine Tasting

I’ve been wanting to write a post about an April 5th collaborative effort undertaken by five South Bay Area hiking bloggers, yours truly being among them. I’d heard about a local fourteener that was only climbable one day out of every year. I’d certainly never climbed it. “A fourteener?” I had asked, making no attempt to conceal [...]

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Wine Book Club “Spin the Bottle” selection: Wine Across America

Date: Thu, Apr 10, 2008 Wine Tasting

Friends, it’s time, once again, to play… [Studio audience chants in unison] …Spin! That! Wine Bottle!! [Feigned hysteria] Today our contestants are: wine book authors from Earth! And to start things off right, let’s give our bottle a good spin, shall we? [Background swell of vacuum racking equipment, clacking and humming merrily] Yes, friends! Round and round the bottle goes! Where [...]

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Spring Mountain boutique winery welcomes Heidi Barrett as new winemaker

Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2008 Wine Tasting

“The Fantesca story is as much a history of our experiences, our property and the people who have produced our wine as it is a story of the alluring and fun-loving Fantesca character that personifies it,” say Susan and Duane Hoff. If you love Napa Valley wines but haven’t followed the history of winemaking in Napa [...]

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