Having attended the picnic before as a guest, it was fun to be on the other side of the table, pouring wines for the guests, chatting about what they liked best and what they thought of each wine.  At my table, the overwhelming favorite was the Milbrandt Pinot Gris, a perfect patio pounder. 

The biggest buzz from the auction was centered around two wineries from Walla Walla - Va Piano Vineyards and Gramercy Cellars. Both Justin Wylie and Greg Harrington are clearly making world class wines and elevating the status of Washington on the worlds wine map.  I’ve enjoyed the Bruno Blend from Va Piano, and look forward to trying the Temranillo and Syrah’s from Gramercy in the near term.

They need to work on their website and SEO, as I couldn’t find anything online for Cru Selections or Elle Project or Elle 2006 that wasn’t a review.  But, these guys do know how to make delicious wines, and that is what really matters.

According to the Seattle Times Paul Gregutt, "It generally requires the economics of scale to offer solidly made Washington syrah priced in the $12 to $15 sweet spot, which is why so very few boutiques even try….created by Chris Gorman and Mark Ryan McNeilly, for their friend Guy Harris, who has just launched a boutique-focused distributorship named Cru Selections."

We really enjoyed this wine; a Syrah and Viognier blend that you just don’t see very often from Washington wine makers.  It was light and balanced and a great summer grilling wine that paired well with both flatiron steaks and shrimps right off the grill. Check out Nick Benz’ take on what the best wines are for summer grilling.

And, the Olympics are right around the corner.

It’s been enough to make a Seattlite forget about the Mariners and the team formerly known as the Sonics.

I think Germany out plays the Spaniards with the support of an amazing crowd in Vienna. Tune in Sunday at 11:45 PT.

Keep up on the action with the ever entertaining Deadspin guys.

For a $35 concert ticket… $9.95 convenience charge.  Are you kidding?!  30% is outrageous and I’ll just wander over to a boxoffice.

This wine come from the Cotes du Provence AOC, the largest wine marking region in Provence which comprises most of the eastern part of the region. While the main grape used in this AOC is Carignon, the Clos d’Alari focused on the more familiar Syrah and Grenache varietals.  Carignon is most often used in ordinary table wines, or as they say in France, Vin Ordinaire.

Notes from Garagiste: The 2004 Clos d’Alari is the freshest ambassador of charm, intensity, varietal fruit, dried brush and lingering pure fruit that one could ask for - almost as a tank sample of Provence itself.  I almost hesitate to describe the wine as it’s medium weight personality has so much to say on its own.  With low alcohol (13%) and a smile as wide as the ocean, this is a wine all of us can wrap our arms around and be proud to open for our guests.

As a kid, I was a huge Larry Bird fan.  He was my favorite player from any of the three leagues that I considered "real sports" at the time.  I recall watching many a Laker/Celtics game back in the mid 80’s.

My Goal: buy/build a clean, easy to use setup to make all of my media accessible through the HD TV that is the center of our living room. 

Options: Dell has a small pc that is up to the task, but I couldn’t stand their 80 option/add on check out to even find out what the machine would cost in total.  HP also has an attractive option, but in the end I was ready to jump on the Mac bandwagon (despite their annoying Mac vs PC advertising campaign).

Final Setup: Mac Mini 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo + 2 Gb RAM + 120 GB Hard Drive + Super Drive + Western Digital 500GB External hard drive + Elgato EyeTV 250 + Apple Wireless Keyboard + Panasonic 42 inch Plasma.

How To:

1. Panasonic Plasma TV Mounted to Wall. 

2. Purchased Apple Mac Mini. 

3. Purchased separately DVI to HDMI cable to connect the Mac to the Plasma.  The Mac botted up right away and figured out the display.  There was a small amount of overscan, which can be fixed with this tool: Switch ResX.  The dimensions of your specific plasma can be found through a Live.com search.

4. From there, the Mac is ready to roll.  I attached a 500gb external hard drive to store additional media (videos, photos, music mainly).

5. Installed Elgato EyeTV 250.  This turned out to be a fantastic purchase, and well worth the $199 price tag.  We used the Elgato to seamlessly capture old VHS footage and save as .mp4 files, which we then edited further within iMovie.  It took some time, but I turned a box full of VHS into 5 clean DVD’s that we are much more likely to watch at the next family get together.  The EyeTV 250 is also great for PVR type activities, but we already had this function through our comcast box and found it was just easier to keep it there.  Interesting sidenote - you can capture live tv by connecting your mac to a comcast set top box through a firewire cable.

6. MacTheRipper and Handbrake are indispensible tools for archiving your own DVD collection to hard drive.

7. I did install Vista using Mac Boot Camp, and the two operating systems ran perfectly side by side, and were even able to share the external hard drive.  This was particularly interesting to me, because Vista has a far superior Media Center Application.  Ultimately, I removed Vista to save hard drive space as my iMovie and iPhoto projects got a little out of hand.  A 40gb iPhoto library is a scary beast. 

8. A few of the sites that I found particularly helpful during this project: MacHTPC, 123MacMini, The Green Button, and Engadget.

Ultimately, we found that we used the setup in a different way than I thought I would.  Beyond having a Mac in the house to edit videos, archive pictures, and sync my iPod, we found that we enjoyed letting the 5 star pictures play as a screen saver most.  With a plasma tv in such a prominent location in our home, why not share your best pictures? We didn’t use the htpc type remote interface as much as I thought we would.  Most of the time we were ok operating the computer through the mouse/keyboard interface. 

Feel free to leave me questions in the comment section and I’d be happy to share my experience. 

• tons of energy in online advertising
• Noticeable buzz around ad networks
• Test, test, test was a theme present in many sessions.
• Microsoft was well represented by Young Bean Song speaking about Engagement Mapping
• Lots of startups with questionable biz models - How many of the exhibiting companies will be in biz next year? In 5 years? How do they plan to make money?
• Mobile is going to be big, but nobody is quite sure how big or how to get there
• This video shows about what it’s like to attend: http://youtube.com/watch?v=GTmrSb7VF-s
• Recession chatter was present in every session, and all voices said to keep spending money on what you know works and is measurable: http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3741296/RWord+Meets+OWord.htm

After drinking this with dinner the other night, courtesy of my aunt and uncle, I had to do some research on Mourvedre and see if I could gather some knowledge to share. I found that Its most commonly used in Rhone style blends and has an apparent affinity for the Grenache grape, and known for its presence in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape.  Not many folks are crafting this wine into single varietals.

According to Mark Ryan: Rich, round and full, with exotic aromas of black pepper, spice, roasted meats, bramble, orange peel and crushed black raspberries, this wine is novel to keep your taste buds freshly interested and wanting more. We only made a few barrels of this and it won’t be around for long. Very limited, only 100 cases produced.

Bodegas Tomas Cusine El Vilosell

If you see this on a menu, order it. If you see it at a local wine shop, buy a couple bottles.   This is a tasty blend of 50% Tempranillo, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Garnacha, and 8% Merlot that is right at home in this unique label.

The story goes that Tomas Cusine has recently left Castell del Remei in the Costers del Segre DO of Northeastern Spain, where he and his family had worked the vines for over 20 years to start his own label.  Like his label, he has a nontraditional style that are spice driven and heavy on the fruit. A real value if you can find it at $12-$15.

Four of the last five big games I’ve been at, we’ve lost.  I think its time to stop going to watch the Zags in person.

At any rate, the conference tournament is over and its about time to dance.  Here is my selection sunday prediction: 7 seed vs 10 seed Davidson with Stanford the 2 seed waiting for the winner. The teams that are in that 6-11 mess in the middle that I dont want to play are: Arizona, Kansas State, and USC.

1 Seeds: North Carolina, Memphis, Tennessee, UCLA

2 Seeds: Duke, Texas, Georgetown, Stanford

3 Seeds: Kansas, Xavier, Michigan State, Butler

4 Seeds: Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, UConn, Wazzu

I placed an order with AmazonFresh on Wednesday and I was pleasantly surprised with the transaction, and thought I’d share. The fresh produce arrived before 6 AM on Thursday; clean and packaged nicely. Aside from fruits and vegetables, I bought some prosciutto and Italian sausages (they arrived in a temperature-controlled bag with ice pack). Even better, there is no delivery fee for orders over $25 and they threw in a “produce sampler” as a token of their gratitude for our business. I love free goodies!

Before I go any further, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Seattle’s newest online grocery service, AmazonFresh has built its business to fit your lifestyle. Its online store front allows you to select from a growing selection of fresh, high-quality products, all accessible to you 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year.

Highlights of the experience:

• Easy to manage. The site enables you to shop by aisle (i.e. produce, bakery, deli) or specialty (i.e. gluten free, kosher, low fat).
• The search progress can get pretty granular if need be. For example, you can search within the artisan bread or bakery snacks categories, both of which are within the broader Bakery aisle. As you cruise through this virtual store, you can select the item and quantity and it’ll appear on the right hand side in your “cart”.
• One of my favorite features is called “save to list” which allows you to tag an item you purchase frequently.
• You don’t need to be home for the delivery. After you select your items, you choose a day/time to have groceries delivered (either before dawn or during the day).
• Household & cleaning, health & beauty and pet care items are also available.

Lowlights:

• AmazonFresh only delivers to residents in select zip codes so I encourage you to confirm you live in one of these neighborhoods before place an order. I’d hate for you to experience the frustration that my friend did today when she learned this.
• Some products require a minimum purchase. For example, you have to purchase a minimum of two small, yellow onions.

What more do you want, a service that unloads the groceries and places them safely into your fridge? AmazonFresh offers expanding selection, great prices and convenient service.

I find value in both being their own unique site, one for social networking, and the other for business networking - I’m into the clear separation of the two in this case and value both. It’ll be really interesting to watch if there is consolidation between the professional networking and social networking sites down the line.

I suppose the other thing that 2008 means, is that there is a social network for just about anything and everything.  In my rumblings around the internets I found Stracka.com, a social network for golfers and a lot more. First, they have overhead views, with distances per team to the hole, and yardage markers along the fairway mashed up with google maps.  Check out the distances to the world famous floating green at the Couer d’Alene Resort Golf Course, where I spent three summers as a fore caddie.

Straka also provides incredible overhead maps of undulating greens, called The Straka Line, that promises to help golfers know exactly what they are shooting at before they get there, and to help them read greens like Tiger Woods.

The community profiles and forums are where Straka looks to really make their mark.  The forums are very useful if you are looking for tricks and tips to that really daunting hole - has anyone played the13th at Augusta? anyone?  Check it out before your next round, and register as the expert for your local home course.

100% Nebbiolo. Pomegranate hue, nose of new leather. Powerful with full fruit, mouth-filling fruit and round. 550 cases

What I think: I’ll be honest, I was looking for an Italian wine I hadn’t had much of (Nebbiolo) and this label sold me.  Its classic, interesting, simple, and Italian all at the same time.  I also turns out that the actual wine was just as interesting but decidedly unlike the Italian wines I usually drink. Unlike my usual Italian go-to-Chianti, the wine has a really surprisingly light, but beautiful, ruby red hue in the glass, with an amber halo.  I hate describing wines as floral, or even fruity, because, well, it just sounds too fruity.  But, this wine really does smell like a bunch of red roses, and goes down with heavy tannins surrounded by a tart sweetness that leaves your mouth a bit dry.  It went perfectly with flank steak over a salad, but I can see it complementing many a meal with red meat to pork to pizza or pasta.

We enjoyed this wine this afternoon with good friends at the Grape Choice in downtown Kirkland.  Beside sporting a fantastic label with a great story (read  more below), this Washington grown wine is made in Oregon and is flat out really good.  it went perfectly with our afternoon sitting on the porch in the sun.

According to Owen Roe: Dr. Elerding’s Vineyard in Alderdale is located just off the Columbia River in the Horse Heaven Hills.  The summer heat and winter cold are moderated resulting in a climate that is similar to the famous Chateauneuf duPape region of the Southern Rhone.  We also blended a portion of the structured Grenache from Dr. Elerding’s Yakima Valley Vineyard in addition to Art DenHoed’s Grenache from Erickson Road Vineyard in the Rattlesnake Hills.  These sites have added a beautiful elegance to this year’s version of the Sinister Hand.  This Rhone-styled wine is very dark with fruit flavors and pepper with excellent texture – it will work well with a variety of foods especially spicy fare and dark meats. 63% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 7% Mourvedre

The label is a family crest – a depiction of a severed left hand that tells the story of a rowing competition among the O’Neills and O’Reillys (Owen Roe was an O’Neill).  Whoever touched land first after rowing across the lake was rewarded with the land he touched.  Lagging behind, one of the kinsfolk grabs his sword and cleaves his hand and pitches it ashore to touch land first.  He won the land and eventually ruled over it as king.

Valentine’s Day has come and gone but my memories of the wine we enjoyed that night have not. Sean prepared our traditional Valentine’s meal of lamb alongside small, yellow potatoes and green beans. The bottle of 2003 Kennedy Shah Syrah from Woodhouse Family Wine Cellars, couldn’t have complimented the dinner better. Purchased a couple summers ago while roaming in Woodinville wine country with friends, this delightful blend consists of 92% Syrah, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon from the Red Mountain region in the Columbia Valley.

The wine’s smooth, mushroomy flavors accompanied the rich flavors of the lamb nicely. Drawn to hints of tobacco and cherry in the finish, I found myself allowing the wine to linger on the back of the tongue to elicit the sweet earth-like flavor. I recommend finishing the bottle with some high-quality, dark chocolate.

According to wine maker Tom Campbell, this Syrah “has a firm, powerful dark berry fruit dressed in a cloak of rose petals and earthen-mushrooms. A subtle yet complex nose explodes on the palate with soft, round tannins."

About Eyrie:  In 1975, The Eyrie Vineyards produced the first American Pinot noir to compete successfully with the renowned Pinot noirs of Burgundy. (Paris, 1979; Beaune, 1980). Total annual production is around 10,000 cases. All wines are estate-grown and produced.

About the Pinot 2001: Fermented in small bins from completely de-stemmed and mostly whole berries. The ‘must” is punched down by hand every four hours. After a gentle pressing, the wine is transferred to oak casks. During nearly two years in barrel, the wine falls naturally clear, and is bottled without filtration or fining. Approximately 500 cases.

What I think: This came highly recommended from a PinotFreak whos roots run deep in the rich soils of the Willamette Valley. This wine has a distinctly different hue than the younger Oregon Pinot’s we have been drinking lately - light brown.  Early in the evening, this juice reminded me of port- the soft raisiny cherry scents, but without the heavy syrupy sweetness.  It  developed nicely and the port characteristics faded away into the rainy evening leaving us with glasses containing only the residual sediment of this really, really good wine.  Get to Costco before they sell out!