Just taking a moment to share a little bit of news with those of you who are members of the Open Wine Consortium and/or are registered to attend the First Annual North American Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa next month.

I’ve been working on a newsletter at the gracious behest of Joel Vincent, who originally spearheaded the Open Wine Consortium. I’ll be sending the inaugural issue of that newsletter to your inbox on October first!

~winehiker

50 can be a very special number, a golden milestone that speaks of advancement and achievement, the fruits of passion, efforts worth celebrating. This month, I’m pleased to be hosting the 50th Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW), a monthly online wine tasting event that, for 50 months running, has been a cooperative endeavor of the wine blogging community and the brainchild of Lenn Thompson of the LENNDEVOURS blog.

Also quite special is the Autumn season; it’s certainly a favorite of mine. Despite cooler evenings, the heat of summer still lingers, the vegetable garden is happily producing your favorite squashes, tomatoes and peppers, and you’re anticipating the robust red wines that will warm you during the longer nights ahead. And yet it’s comfortable out still, and you’ve been thinking about hopping in the car for one last outing in your favorite nearby wilderness—one that’s within, say, 50 miles of your home—before the weather turns wintry.

And so, imagine you and your significant wineau walking in the cool woods of Autumn. An amber glow lights your path, golden leaves fall around you, and as you walk, you’re working up a sizable hunger for that post-hike picnic you’ve got planned. Not to mention that sizable thirst! Which wine will you pour in the Great Outdoors?

You get bonus points for choosing a wine that is made locally to you, double bonus points for sharing the name of the wilderness you would walk in, triple bonus points for sharing the name of the trailhead and how to get there, and a gazillion bonus points for actually walking that trail, enjoying your selected wine on a post-hike picnic, and describing your day of outdoor adventure for your readers. But by all means, do describe the wine!

Wine bloggers around the world typically post their WBW reviews on the second Wednesday of the month. This month, Wine Blogging Wednesday is October 8th. If you are participating this month, just add a comment to this post with a link to your WBW#50 review. Within the following week, I will endeavor to compile a synopsis of this month’s reviews and post them here on Winehiker Witiculture. Like those cool Autumn woods, I’m sure the results will be golden, and you may even achieve a milestone of your own.

Hey, it’s WBW #50! Let’s make it special.

~winehiker

This past Saturday was a rollicking blast. There’s something about a group of family and friends that not only want to go winehiking, but want to celebrate a birthday, too. Add a couple of girlfriends who just want to have fun, and, well, who am I to forsake a celebration? I decided that the Birthday Boy among us, an enterprising fellow named Lee, should not only enjoy a fun Romp in the Redwoods, but a post-hike bottle of Mumm’s and a chocolate ganache birthday cake, too.

But wouldn’t you know: everyone had a good romp!

On the bridge adjacent to the confluence of the north and south forks of Fall Creek, a group pose. From left to right are Fred, Helen, Stacey, Lee, Jenny, Bob, and myself. Not pictured: Deirdre and Erica.


One of the myriad downed trees that make hiking at Fall Creek such a neat adventure.


There are so many crossings along the South Fork of Fall Creek that it’s easy to lose count of them.


Jenny looks, to me, like a natural-born hiker. I think she’s ready to visit Fall Creek again.


Here come the rest of the troops, tripping merrily along the woodsy morning.


Sylvan Oasis Moment #214.


On one tiny spot along the creekbank: Did these happily fecund ladybugs all meet on ladybug.ning.com? Like that old hoofer Jimmy Durante might say, Fall Creek’s “got a million of ’em”.

The Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz says: “When it rains, it spores.” It’s not clear which species of fungus this specimen is, but it’s a mighty bright and colorful variety of tree fungus.


That’s Birthday Boy Lee discovering an alternate way to cross Fall Creek.

One of my guests inquired about this snazzy little creekside plant; its bright-orange fruit had caught her eye. It’s called a Watermelon Berry (Streptopus amplexifolius).

Hallcrest Vineyards & Winery, in all its radiant late-summer splendor. Shortly after I snapped this photo, the Hallcrest production crew delivered a few bins of cold-stored pinot grapes, which were compact yet quite flavorful.


In the Hallcrest tasting room. From right to left, that’s Jenny, husband Bob talking to son Lee, Helen and Fred (behind Lee), Brittany (a.k.a. @WineQT), and Deirdre (a.k.a. Dee Dee). That’s Amy behind the bar.

Ours was a lively and fun group of hikers who not only enjoyed the hike but loved to eat, too. It was immensely gratifying to me to see nearly all of them go back for seconds on lunch — before even tasting any wine!

Next up: an easy 4-mile out-n’-back hike along the Zinfandel Trail, with a winery at both ends! Just wait’ll you see what I’m fixin’ for lunch.

Ready for a winehike? You know who to call on.

~winehiker

Coding madly! From sunup to sundown. Thank goodness for those rich brown beans. Mmm-mmmm.

I meant to get another blog post out before today. I’ve been sucking down the coffee and working like a doggone dog since three weeks ago, doing three big things at once. One is modifying my blog, which you can now see is in a snazzier 3-column format. Sooner or later I will figure out the CSS for the dang thing; the style sheet code from my last layout was light years cleaner.

Another project has been my website itself. While I’ve now got much of the big picture effort behind me — the layout and formatting issues are essentially done — I believe I still have another week or two of 14-hour days working on a few pages worth of content and making it load a little faster. See for yourself if you can spot any changes. There are a few.

The third project? Well, I wish I could tell you about it, but I can’t. Not yet. Those of you who are in the wine industry will certainly hear about it, albeit indirectly, while those of you who still read this bitrag will see a few words from me next week about it. I’d surely tell you sooner, dear ones, but then I’d be compelled to force you to chase me up a tall steep hill on a hot dry day, which might just — well, you know…

…I may not be pulling in a paycheck right now, but I am diggin’ what I’m doin’, so I’m gonna go write on doin’ what I’m diggin’. And then who knows? Maybe you’ll dig the result.

~winehiker

These past weeks have been as much of a mental break as they were a return to Ground Level. To Joy. My old self, Square One. If it weren’t for the limits of technology, who knows how long it might have taken for desire to reawaken within me — to come back to this blog.

Suffice to say, here I am again. Back on the ol’ Witiculture blog. Recharged, running full and cool. Ready to tackle new challenges.

Geez, I sound like I’m giving a stump speech.

I’d seriously begun — well, honestly, I was way past begun — to hate computing at home. And I don’t toss that particular four-letter word around too often. Technology can expand one’s abilities for accomplishment, and I’d certainly been eager, early on, to embrace it.

But this past year had found me increasingly frustrated with my PC’s inabilities to do what I asked of it. It had gotten to the point wherein I just simply refused to wrestle with the grief I would constantly bear when attempting to accomplish the most basic of tasks. Looking back, if I had only been more focused on replacing it, I probably would not have endured for so long what I could barely stand to tolerate! Indeed, some days I was ready to take a 20-pound sledgehammer to it; I truly hated to even turn the damned thing on.

Sometimes, you can’t help but feel that epithets will figure prominently in your epitaph.

Finally, toward the middle of July, and only days before my contract ended quite abruptly at VMware, my PC gave up the ghost. Ironically, I had just ordered and received new DIMM chips, and was preparing to install this new RAM when the mother board blew a trace — as if the infernal contraption knew I was going to tinker with it and should instead add insult to injury.

There was a period there in which I wasn’t sure what had happened and I’d had the PC diagnosed. I’d hoped it wasn’t the hard drive that had blown. Thankfully, it wasn’t the hard drive (and I now have everything backed up, thank goodness). But meanwhile, I’d been paying my bills and doing other personal stuff online at work — something I don’t prefer to do. I certainly hadn’t preferred to blog while at work, either; there’s always something preventing me from doing that. Call it ethics if you will. Or the need for at least two hours of research and writing time, if not more, to assemble a decent blog post.

After all, the paychecks I was receiving from VMware were, ostensibly, compensation for my actually performing a job for them, not for me.

When the gig with VMware ended — due more to fulmination at the top of the organization than to my own performance — I was suddenly without a computer. True enough, I felt free and unburdened from the yoke of PC oppression — it was now my turn! — but only for about two days. I needed to stay tapped in. I needed to pay my bills! If nothing else, I needed to be able to respond to email to the tune of 150 on a slow day.

So I got a new PC, an immensely sleek, shiny and souped-up HP box equipped with Windows Vista (which I thoroughly like, by the way). After much configuring, reinstalling, and getting back to routine, I set out to discover the new PC’s boundaries. And, as it turned out, to rediscover and expand my own.

I want to be *your* Sledge Hammer. This will be my testimony!

I’m much happier now. The joy has returned! Without going into specifics, let’s just say that I have 200 times the RAM I used to have. And I have accomplished much. Oh, so much.

And yet, these past weeks have had me in Stealth Mode as I have sought to exploit my new PC’s capabilities. Certainly I’d had a huge To-Do List to tackle — things I hadn’t been able to do on the old PC. It had become a marvelously long list.

As I’ve been checking off these items, the To-Do list has gotten longer but the stress has melted, my focus has sharpened immensely, the Joy of Accomplishment has returned, and I can once again approach my future with a newfound enthusiasm. I’m smiling again!

I love my new PC.

Now there’s a four-letter word I think I’ll be using more often.
And so, patient reader, please stay tuned for news about what I’ve been up to. There is much to tell.

~winehiker

[Editor’s note: If you’re reading this post directly on my blog, one of those To-Do items may appear evident. I hope you like the new 3-column scheme and color format. Obviously I still have work to do. But at least now I’ll enjoy doing it!]

UPDATE: Please allow me to preface the following post by stating that prior to my writing it, I was not aware that the lone hiker that I describe below had pulled a hoax on authorities; he was not attacked by a mountain lion. Despite this galling evidence, the following post is still pertinent to hiking in mountain lion country. 

Last Saturday a local hiker was attacked by a mountain lion in Palo Alto’s Foothills Park. The hiker was hiking alone. Yesterday, in response to the incident, a number of area parks and preserves were temporarily shut down and an animal tracker was hired by Palo Alto city officials to hunt the mountain lion down and kill it. I vehemently disagree with this knee-jerk tactic.

Late this morning, a fellow hiker posted the names of the closed parks on a local bulletin board, mentioning that the Midpeninsula Open Space District is working closely with Foothills Park staff and that the California Department of Fish and Game will reopen these preserves and facilities as soon as it is safe.

The posting was meant well. To me, however, it was only half the story. I felt compelled to tell the other half, so I contributed a post of my own:

The reason that these local parks and preserves are temporarily closed is so an “animal tracker” (read: “hunter”) can kill the mountain lion without interference. It’s a shame that our first instinct, as a society, is to kill a big cat rather than trap it humanely and release it in a more remote area. We have to get used to the fact that wilderness isn’t wilderness if we keep killing what’s wild in it.

My fellow hiker wrote me directly:

In receiving my volunteer trail crew training, it was explained to us that, more often than not, when the animals responsible for the attacks on humans are caught, they are found to be injured or demented. This drives them into behavior patterns they normally wouldn’t have…like attacking humans. In these cases, they typically prefer to put the animal down. Some of the other cases, where the animal has been killed and no attacks were involved, I would agree, seems a bit excessive.

A-ha! “When the animals…are caught….[we] typically prefer to put the animal down.” Hence my argument.

Let’s face it: oftentimes the explanations we hear and read are biased only toward humans, not toward the animal. When you’re truly hungry - as a top-of-the-food-chain predator might be in times of drought - you’ll do what is necessary to eat. That’s just true nature at work.

A non-rescuscible injured cat I can understand euthanizing. Maybe. But pronouncing an animal to be demented is, I feel, a subjective, narrow-minded, human-centric, and therefore wholly inappropriate judgment that merely serves to perpetuate our human fear of nature rather and our unwarranted desire to control it - i.e., sanitize the outdoor experience - rather than embrace it. It is issues like this that regularly remind me that it’s we humans who need to reconsider our own behavior patterns.

I said as much in response to my fellow hiker’s email, and received the following response:

Demented animals are determined to be so by the results of lab tests and autopsy, not arbitrary pronouncements. Each case has to be assessed individually.

I felt as if my argument had fallen overboard into The Sea of Missed Points. So I hoisted it back aboard:

Therefore, it would seem that to be pronounced demented, the cougar is likely killed first. That scenario smacks of being a typical application of misguided human-centric “shoot first and ask questions later” logic rather than a consideration of the life and needs of the animal itself. Typical human behavior, yet still wholly inappropriate.

I’d sure like to learn of a cougar who attacked a human but whose life was spared.

We have to remember that we humans are visitors in the cougar’s habitat; it is not the other way around. Soon, I suppose - perhaps by the hour of this posting - there will be one less local cougar merely because we as a society have chosen to react with extreme prejudice to its choice of menu. I’m sure the accosted hiker knows how lucky he was despite his decision to hike alone in an area where mountain lion warnings are clearly posted. But, sadly, it is the mountain lion’s demise that will be exchanged for this hiker’s lucky break.

I haven’t even begun to mention what happens to a local ecosystem when you remove its top predator. But an increase in highway fatalities due to excessive deer populations springs to mind.

So why do we even choose to capture these big cats? They are not demented; they do not run afoul of natural law. But we humans do it without regard.

We seem to continue, as a society, to act as sociopaths against Nature. We jump to conclusions based on our own point of view. We gun down what we don’t understand. We often say “live and let live”; why don’t we mean it?

So when a mountain lion attacks, why do we shoot first and ask questions later? I am hereby asking, people. 

We need cougars in our local hills. Let Nature take its course. Take pictures, not lives. And don’t hike alone.

Related post: Cougar!

~winehiker

Yesterday, after learning about one of my favorite wines garnering a Double Gold from the San Francisco International Wine Competition, I decided to pop a bottle and cook up a delicious dinner to go with it. Ever since dining at Slow Club in San Francisco last Thursday night, I’d been in the mood to see if I could conjure up my own version of braised chicken breast, and I felt that the 2006 Torcido from Twisted Oak Winery, with its ripe, meaty flavors, would pair well.

So I poured a glass of Torcido, honed my chef’s knife, and went to work. Later, confident that I was satisfactorily smelling up the neighborhood, I tweeted what I was up to:

Braising chicken breast in marsala, onions, garlic, garden-grown thyme, organic chicken broth, and essence. S/B !! w/ that luscious Torcido. 

My Twitter feed displays on my Facebook page, where fellow winehiker Thais Li spied it this morning. She promptly asked me for my recipe!

I was profoundly flattered. I was also bereft of a recipe, since I’d concocted the whole shebang out of my head. You know, as long as I’ve got tongs or a wooden spoon in one hand and a glass of vino in the other, I’m cookin’. I’m usually happy with the results. Last night was no different! And the wine made for a purty darn good pairing, too.

To wit, my recipe for CHICKEN MARSALA, WINEHIKER STYLE:

3-4 boneless chicken breasts
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Emeril’s essence (or substitute 1/2 tsp. cayenne powder, 1/4 tsp. cumin and 1/4 tsp. black pepper)
1 onion, sliced
3-4 cloves garlic, smashed
8 oz. crimini mushrooms, sliced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 cup marsala wine
2 cups chicken broth
Olive oil
Pat of butter
Salt & pepper to taste

Wash the chicken breasts, pat them dry, then start a skillet over medium heat, with just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the skillet. In a brown paper bag, add the flour, salt, and essence. Close the bag and shake to combine these dry ingredients, then add the chicken breasts and shake well to coat them.

When the oil is smoking hot, remove the chicken breasts from the paper bag with tongs, and place them into the skillet. Brown the breasts on both sides for 5-7 minutes each, being careful not to scorch them. When the breasts are done, remove them from the skillet, place them onto a plate, then cover them with foil to keep them warm.

Add the butter and the onions to the skillet, stirring occasionally until they are almost soft. Add the crimini mushrooms and the thyme and cook until the mushrooms have released and evaporated their water content. Add the garlic and cook one additional minute. Then, place the cooked chicken breasts back into the skillet.

Pour in the wine and let come to a boil, then add enough chicken broth to cover the chicken breasts. Turn the heat down to Low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Before serving, remove the sprig of thyme, and garnish with fresh chopped Italian parsley. Oh, and pour a generous glassful of Torcido! After smelling up the neighborhood something fierce, you deserve to celebrate what you just accomplished.

Cheers!
~winehiker

The Flamingo Resort, Santa Rosa, circa 1959: it was the place to stay north of the bay within two years of its opening, a posh retreat for the Hollywood Jet Set. One could find the likes of Jayne Mansfield, dramatic and daring in her then-scandalous two-piece swimsuit, soaking up the sun poolside and presumably posing for the local paparazzo.

I remember our family trips to see my nana in Kenwood. We would motor up Highway 101 from Santa Clara all the way to the Highway 12 exit into downtown Santa Rosa, and would always drive past the Flamingo before turning south toward Kenwood and the Sonoma Valley. I profess a fondness for art deco and googie architecture, and even as a young kid was struck by the way the resort’s iconic tower - with flamingo perched atop - evoked all things exotic to me. It was the epitome of cool before I knew what cool really was. I knew the good life must be happening, right there in Santa Rosa. Little did I know at the time that I would someday return as part of a new revolution.

Fast-forward nearly fifty years: the Flamingo Conference Resort & Spa has undergone a recent major refurbishing, and the City of Santa Rosa has declared it a historic landmark. It is still the place to see and be seen, and it is, as was announced today, a place where wine bloggers from all over the U.S., possibly even the world, will convene October 24-26 for the North American Wine Bloggers Conference, the first event of its kind.