Ever get the urge to wad up a bunch of big slushy snowballs only to smash all your friends upside the head (and other places) with them? Well, of course you have.

The Winehiker, naturally, is all about fun things like big long multidenominational morphemes (see the title of this post) - and snowball wars. Why, I’ll even do such fun stuff as cut off my head and put it on a cartoon figure like I did in this fun little video from our friends at JibJab.

Enjoy, and may you find much to delight in this holiday season!

~winehiker

I’ve been invited by the nice folks at Cinnabar Winery to speak at their next Alchemy Tuesdays program, which is scheduled for January 8th. The public is invited, and yes! - it’s on a Tuesday evening. Imagine that.

So far I’d have to say I’m delighted by the variety of speakers who have presented in this monthly series. I especially enjoyed October’s presentation featuring Monique Lee, a volunteer with the California Bat Conservation Fund - so much so that I wrote a post about it the following day. At the time, Halloween was fast approaching, and so the timing of Monique’s presentation could not have been better.

January has its own appeal, too, for it represents new beginnings - a time when many of us look ahead with dreams for the new year and plans to realize those dreams. Often those plans include our own sense of well-being as well as the positive changes we desire to make for ourselves. I’ve often regarded my time in the outdoors as being wholly therapeutic; there’s nothing like a good hike to heighten my sense of engagement with the world. And it can’t be overlooked how beneficial moderate wine consumption can be. Both of these passions are also highly social endeavors, and thus I can surely tell you that there’s nothing better than experiencing the glow of camaraderie in the faces and voices of the many people who have joined me thus far on the winehiking trail.

I’ll therefore be presenting about how hiking and wine integrate with each other in my California Wine Hikes tours. But more than that, I’ll be talking about those things that make me so passionate about all that the California wine country represents to wine lovers and nature lovers alike. Plus, I’ll be throwing in a Winehikerism or two.

If you’ll be local to the San Francisco peninsula or the San Jose area on January 8th, then come to Cinnabar’s tasting room for the wines and cheeses. Or come to see me! In any case, I hope you’ll consider attending.* I promise it will be fun!

My presentation will start at 7:30 p.m.; tickets are $10 and include wine and cheese. Seats are limited, though, so if you’re planning to go, do sign up soon. I hope to raise my glass to you in Saratoga!

~winehiker

*Special reason to attend: I’ll be offering 10% off my York Mountain & Edna Valley Hiker’s Paradise tour scheduled for June 8-12, 2008.

Like multitudes of others inspired by its jaw-dropping grandeur, I have been quite fond of visiting Yosemite National Park on a regular basis over the years. With three summits of Half Dome to my credit and a few harrowing bear stories to tell, it seems that I can’t let a season go by without stopping in at least once, even if my intention is merely to cross the Sierras via Tioga Pass on my way east or west. With the Valley’s polished granite cliffs, massive monoliths, and incredible waterfalls - not to mention its myriad trails that beckon so many of us into the backcountry - Yosemite is a true California destination like no other.

Yosemite’s appeal, however, does not go without the problems inherent in finding places to put all the people who regularly visit this shining gem of the national park system.

We love Yosemite, but we risk loving it to death. Source: National Park Service.

Between protecting the park’s resources and providing an excellent experience for park visitors exists the Yosemite Planning Committee. Because the National Park Service is mandated to protect and preserve the park’s natural and cultural resources while providing for the enjoyment and education of park visitors in such a means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations, the very mission of the National Park Service calls for allowing use of parks, but not to the detriment of the values that make them unique.

Thus, user capacity is determined by what types and levels of visitor use can be accommodated while maintaining social and resource conditions consistent with the purposes of the park and the goals of its mission. The planning committee, however, does not keep this kind of important decision-making unto itself, and actually does a pretty fair job of seeking public input and providing workshops at the park that involve people in Yosemite’s future.

One of these workshops occurs next February 6th through 8th, wherein Yosemite National Park will be hosting a User Capacity Symposium and has invited the public to attend (though RSVPs are required, a specific Yosemite location has not yet been determined). The purpose of the workshop is to continue a dialogue about best practices for addressing user capacity in national parks and other public lands by bringing together professionals and researchers versed in visitor use and user capacity and, of course, to make the topic accessible to the public.

If you’re interested in attending, please RSVP by February 1st, 2008 to Jim Bacon at (209) 379-1067 or email at: jim_bacon@nps.gov. I’m sure Jim would like to hear from you, and you might find it worthwhile to take a personal stake in the future of Yosemite.

~winehiker

If you’ve got three minutes and twenty seconds,
you gotta watch this video!

Yesterday afternoon I received an email I had been anticipating since late last Spring: a note from the executive producer of NBC-TV’s award-winning In Wine Country show alerting me about my TV appearance!

As you may recall from my previous posts, the show’s host, Mary Babbitt, discovered me on this very blog early in the year and, as a result, we did a shoot at Picchetti Winery in mid-May. Since that time, the In Wine Country production crew has somehow managed to reduce over 3 hours of film into 3 minutes, and now they’re ready to release it to the air waves.

The show will air this Sunday, December 16th at 9:30pm PST
on local NBC affiliate KNTV-11.*

Elsewhere around the country, I understand that it will be broadcast at certain odd hours; for instance 4:00 a.m. in the Northeast U.S. If you have Tivo, you should be easily able to schedule a recording of the episode.

One exciting piece of news is that prior to September, In Wine Country was broadcast only regionally, in select pockets around the U.S. That all changed when NBC Corporate picked up the show and is now broadcasting it nationally.

For those of you who will be viewing the national syndication, it will be available on NBC stations the weekend of December 22 and 23. Check your local listings for air times, which I’m told will be around 2am-4am. The widget below should be of some assistance to you; just click the US region button to search listings for your zip code.**

The 30-minute episode is titled Wine With A Cause, and it will feature five 3- to 4-minute segments, one of which will profile me as a representative of my tour company, California Wine Hikes. Here’s a synopsis of that episode:

• A winery donating wheelchairs for each case of wine
• How shoes make a good pairing for charity
• Growing bamboo
• Hiking along a wine trail
• Making ice cream with wine

Can you guess which segment I’m appearing in?

The story will also be available on the In Wine Country website. In a few weeks, it will also be available on iTunes.com as a free podcast which I will subsequently post here for you. If you wish to order DVD or VHS copies of this episode, please contact VideoWatch at (415) 897-3983 or see their website at www.videowatch.org.

For additional background about how I wound up on In Wine Country, please see the following posts, which are listed chronologically. Be sure to read Mary Babbitt’s comment on the first one!

The Five S’s of wine tasting
It feels like Spring for this Winehiker
You’ll know it’s true when you see it on TV
In winehiking country: the NBC-TV interview
You can be healthwise AND decadent in the California wine country

~winehiker

*Time is approximate due to possible football post-game show activity.
**To find zip codes for your area, see the USPS’ Zip Code Lookup page.

I’m no Chandler Bing. And yet upon first sniffing, then tasting this 2004 EOS Reserve Petite Sirah from Paso Robles, I was culturally compelled to say:

Oh. My. Gawd!

The long-running sitcom, Friends, featured Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing. And strangely, now I do too. Photo source: toppics4u.com

Our friend Chandler also said:

I’m not really good at giving advice. Do you want a sarcastic comment?

Nevertheless, I’m going to try to reach beyond my first impressions of this wine to characterize, evangelize, dramatize - even advise about - it’s sensuous character. If I can keep from exaggerating a la Chandler Bing. But why the hell shouldn’t I exaggerate?

All right, look: if you absolutely have to tell the truth, at least wait until the timing’s right. And that’s what deathbeds are for.

Yeah, Chandler Bing said that, too. But I won’t wait nearly as long as my deathbed to spill all my guts, seeing as how WBW #40 is here today. And so’s the wine.

The See

In my defense, it was dark and he was a very pretty guy.
An unfiltered wine exhibiting a bold, dark violet color tapering to magenta; clear at the edges.

The Swirl

It bodes well for me that speed impresses you.
If you swirl this Petite Sirah just fast enough as you gaze into it under your nearest compact fluorescent bulb, you can almost see the gamut of the blue spectrum in its inky recesses.

The Sniff

Honey, I know you’re in pain right now, but I’m a little turned on.
Boysenberries, chocolate, and coffee. Ooh baby ooh! Must be a breakfast wine.

The Sip

Is there a mute button on this wine?
Loud, luscious raspberry, boysenberry, and blueberry flavors underlaid by muted baking spices and a subtle but rich alluvium. Tartness is crisp and tannin, while somewhat pronounced in this young wine, provides satisfying structural balance to its effusive fruity goodness. Remind you of any popular TV characters?

The Savor

That’s a relatively open weave and I can still see your nipular area.
Some wines are just nice. Others leave profound impressions, mental images that stay with you. This wine is total brain candy. And it stays on, just like Rachel’s loosely-woven bath towel.

The Summary

Wow, it’s - it’s like porno for clowns!
This wine is an overtly hedonistic juggernaut, a circus in the mouth! If you love Petite Sirah, you’ve got some Boogie Nights ahead.

Heat: 13.5%
Where purchased: Bevmo
Price: $19.99
Food pairing: A perfect match with country-style pork ribs slathered in my own moderately hot and tangy-sweet BBQ sauce.
Additional note: The back label on this 2004 EOS Reserve Petite Sirah states it to be the EOS flagship wine.

A virtual clink of the wineglass to Sonadora at Wannabe Wino for hosting this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, the 40th in a series originally conceived by Lenn Thompson at LENNDEVOURS.

~winehiker

With cool days and colder nights upon us here in California, ’tis the season for comfort foods and warm spicy drinks to keep our spirits cheerful. One of the holiday spices I tend to cheer for most is nutmeg, a spice quite universal in its appeal and one that is found in a great many holiday dishes and drinks. I’ve been so fond of nutmeg that I long ago graduated from pre-ground spice in a jar to grating my own nutmeg seeds; the flavor depth of fresh-ground nutmeg is so much more robust, so much more honest. There’s nothing like a perky palate pleaser to give life to your hot toddy, that’s for sure.

I wonder, though, how many of us know where nutmeg comes from? If you’re like me, you might be delighted to discover that the nutmeg is a very pretty tree. One species of that pretty tree grows right here in California.

The flowers and ultra-sharp needle-like leaves of the California nutmeg.

The California Nutmeg, California Torreya, is a member of the Yew family and is in fact quite rare and hard to find; nevertheless it is widely distributed in the mountains of central and northern California. In the coastal mountains, the species descends almost to the coastline; the eastern limit of its range is along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It rarely exceeds 70 feet in height, is found primarily in shady, densely-forested canyons and along mountain streams, and typically grows in mixed habitat with other conifers as secondary canopy. Because of its habitat and relative rarity, it can be difficult to find a nutmeg tree unless you know what you’re looking for.

The first time I noticed a California nutmeg tree I was actually a bit bamboozled; I had never been exposed to this tree in Dendrology class back at Humboldt State. What I saw in its waxy, dark green and opposite-paired needles resembled both a coast redwood and a fir of some sort. But when reaching for a branch-end to inspect it further, those needles were so sharp that they immediately drew blood! The scaly gray-brown bark, conical shape, and lack of fir or redwood cones on the ground nearby had me curious to find out more - to see if I could identify it after returning home.

I’ve since encountered nutmeg growing in small clusters along the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, in occasional pockets among the thickly-forested slopes of the San Francisco peninsula, and even in the dry pygmy forests of the upper slopes of Mount St. Helena in Napa County. It also grows along the road entering Yosemite Valley from El Portal as well as along the cave trails of Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks. But that first nutmeg tree that I discovered still grows along the Zinfandel Trail adjacent to Picchetti Winery, and on subsequent visits I’ve been joyous to find others dotting the vicinity. Because it is rather rare, and because I wish to connect people with the useful native fruits of the land, I tend to point them out to my guests as we walk the trail.

You may be wondering if I’ve ever harvested the nutmeg seeds from these local trees for use in cooking. Well, while I regularly enjoy cooking with local flat-leaf sage and bay laurel, I must admit to never having used local nutmeg. My reasoning was originally rather simple: with such scarce distribution, I preferred to let these seeds remain in their natural home. Plus, these seeds take two seasons to mature, and drying them for use in the kitchen is a process requiring patience. Even then I’ve been tempted: when bruised or crushed, the aroma of the nutmeg’s fleshy, olive-like seed cone (really an aril) is strong, distinctive, and very enticing. When you smell it, it’s pretty clear why this tree is sometimes called Stinking Cedar.

Aside from relative scarcity, it is this pungent smell that is the real reason why California nutmeg pods are not harvested for culinary use. That distinction belongs to another variety of nutmeg tree farmed in the West Indies. Myristica fragrans, a member of the Magnolia family, is a broad-leafed species that yields the aromatic nutmeg scent and flavor that we have grown fond of. The fruit of the evergreen California variety, on the other hand, smells strongly like bay laurel.

Not quite what we want in our eggnogs and fondues!

When you’re a pre-20th century native American living off the land, however, you use what grows around you. While local tribes did use California nutmeg in food preparation, they were just as apt to use its supple wood for making hunting bows. It’s interesting, too, to note that the needles of the California nutmeg, being rather stiff and, attestably, quite sharp, were used by native Americans for tattooing! In later times, taxol, a substance isolated from the California nutmeg, was once found to be of interest in treating cancer; however, the tree’s scarcity was a major dilemma in taxol’s manufacture and distribution. Fortunately this dilemma was resolved by the successful synthesis of taxol.

For years, I’ve found it simply amazing to step beyond merely noticing the plants that grow around us to, in turn, discover their uses and characteristics. Establishing such connections to the nature that surrounds us, however, can require study and even take a lifetime to appreciate; it can be difficult for many folks to figure out how or where to start.

That’s why a guide who knows native plants and their interrelationships can play a key role in fulfilling your enjoyment of the wild places. If you come away remembering only one thing about your nature experience, you might find yourself telling your friends about what you learned. You may also find yourself curious to know more.

Suddenly you’re no longer an armchair traveler. Like comfort food, natural knowledge is therapy for the soul.

One thing’s for certain: if you should someday join me on the trail and there’s a California nutmeg tree to be found, I’ll be pointing it out to you. Hopefully not too sharply!

~winehiker

Friends and fellow readers, are you feeling creative? Wouldn’t it be fun to collaborate on a multi-authored story?

My challenge to you is to use this blog’s comment/leave a response feature to add a paragraph that either dovetails with its preceding paragraph or departs from it in a convincing way, as long as the story flows naturally. I’ve begun our story collaboration with the paragraph below. Crack those finger knuckles and dive in - let’s have fun with this!

I used to love hanging out in the kitchen as a kid. At a point in my life somewhere between diapers and daycare, I remember my mom getting me a small stepstool for use in the kitchen. The stool’s purpose seemed obvious to me: it was for reaching the top shelf of the fridge, where the good stuff was. But Mom had other plans for me: I was now tall enough to wash the dishes!

monkuwino, RichardA, and CarolB have contributed to the story. Who’s next?

~winehiker

Es un blog de vino.
Es un blog de excursionismo.
¡Si­! Es un blog de winehiking.

Translate this blog | Traduzca este blog | Traduire ce blog
Abersetzen Sie dieses Blog | Tradurre questo blog | Traduza este blog

I admit that writing an English-language-only blog tends to exclude more than half the wine-loving population of the world and probably most of the hikers too. For instance, just a periodic glance at my geographic statistics on SiteMeter tells me that I don’t get nearly as much traffic from France, Spain, or Germany as I do from English-speaking regions. Still there’s a fair amount of traffic that I’ve been missing out on, especially in light of the current dollar/euro spread.

And yet I know there must be many folks in these locales and others for whom a hiking tour in the California wine country could provide appeal. Therefore I’ve just loaded a utility that will conveniently translate this blog into Spanish, French, and German as well as Italian and Portuguese. Other languages are as yet not supported.

FreeTranslation.com provides the translation engine. If you have had any experience using FreeTranslation.com, you may be aware that its translation engine is not perfect; local dialectics are sacrificed and sentence construction can often be downright kludgy. But with the rules and exceptions inherent in each individual language, it’s reasonable to harbor low expectations of what I deem to be a very basic language-translation algorithm.

Nevertheless, perhaps there are some of you who will find this translation option useful. If you’re bilingual, I invite you to translate this blog and see how it reads for you. I’ll certainly be interested in knowing if you find it effective as well as convenient - just leave a reply to this post.

Meanwhile, should my stats from Europe go up significantly, I’ll translate all this as being a worthwhile endeavor. Thank you for reading, wherever you call home!

~winehiker

Where does the stuff we consume come from? When we’re done with it, where does it go? Is our present linear materials economy going to sustain us in the future?

From how we extract the Earth’s resources to how we produce, distribute, consume, and dispose them, Annie Leonard presents The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute fast-paced and fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. She also presents ten healthy alternatives to a system in crisis.

It’s our planet, and it’s must-see Internet TV.

~winehiker