Bordeaux - Chateau Mouton

Hey guys!  It's me in France.  Bordeaux.  Puillac to be excact.  Visiting Chateau Mouton.

Why?  Why not!

TK came too.

Went to France for 10 days of vacation.  The main focus was to show TK Paris but made a quick stop in wine country, because you know, french wine is pretty good ;)

Inside the newly built winery.  Top of the tanks.

 The tanks below the wooden floor.

 Large wooden tank with plexiglass stave to see fermentation.  First time seeing this, love the idea.

 Stainless steel tanks.  Looks like shiny soldiers.

Barrel room.

Prettier barre room. Holds approximately 100 barrels.

 Glass bungs.

 Time to taste the wine!

 Tasting from 3 properties.  Chateau d'Armailhac, Chateau Clerc Milon and Chateau Mouton all 2012 barrel samples.

 Enjoying wine by the mouton fixture.

Fortunately we had a sunny day in Bordeaux, before coming over we heard it had been raining non stop.

Watch out, a lot more France is coming your way the next few weeks.

-L

Random February Activities

This week was pretty random.  A few different and unrelated activities happened.

 Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa.  

 I was in Santa Rosa for a management seminar at the Flamingo Hotel.  

 The seminar was great, but not much to write about.  The Snoopy sculptures in the hotel on the other hand, were great!  There were a bunch of them all over.  Santa Rosa is home to a Charles Schulz museum and I am a fan of Peanuts and Beagles.

My beagles Max and Mila.  The resemblance is obvious.

 I also spent an afternoon in the vineyard for a tractor demonstration.  This time of the year the vines are dormant and the main vineyard activity is pruning.  Pruning creates a lot of dead plant material.

 The rotabo chops up and incorporates the brush (dead plant material) into the rows.  This is more efficient than collecting it and it puts some nutrients back into the soil.

 I have passed this sign everyday for the last 7 years working in Napa and never stopped to take a picture.

We had visitors from France that wanted to stop and have their picture taken at this sign (this is their rental car), and I took the opportunity to finally have my picture taken at this iconic stop as well.

The we went to lunch at Lucy's in Yountville with our guests.  Lucia, Lucy, you get it.

Table at Lucy.  Fire pit surrounded by a waterfall.  Love it.

So it was a random, weird week but pretty great.  Next, I am off to France for 10 days.  Bordeaux and Paris, looking forward to sharing that with everyone!

-L

Lobster Monday

Usually the end of January has my favorite work week: Unified Symposium in Sacramento.  

Last year's annual visit was really fun, so I was bummed to miss out this year.

However, I did find some fun times in Napa:

Last Monday Demptos invited us to lunch at their storage facility in south Napa.  Demptos is a cooperage that we buy barrels from.  They put on this lunch as a thank you to their customers.

 All the invited wineries brought wine to share.

By the time I got there, only a few oysters were left, which was fine because I'm not a fan of oysters.

But mermaids are right up my alley.

 Also, I did eat all the cheese.  All of it.

 I love cheese.  I liked how the used the heads of barrels to serve the cheese.

 Then we stood back as they dumped lunch on the table.

 Get your bibs on!

 It was a really long table.  And there were two of them!

 Then you sit down and just dig in with your hands. Lobster, artichoke, garlic, potatoes, onion, corn sausage and lots of butter.

 This made me laugh.

 My lobster friends.

It was really fun!  I mean, eating a lot of food is always really fun for me but this was eating + activity.

I think the act of grabbing food from the center of the table with you hands and tearing it apart made it taste better.

Great way to feed lot of people.

The bummer part of these days is that you have a giant, rich lunch with wine that makes you want a nap and you still have to go back to work and be productive!

-L