A Hefty Pour

I love to learn about wine. In fact, 6 of my items from this year's edition of "The List" are wine related. Now, here we are, two-thirds of the way through the year, and I can finally check off one of these wine related items, which is to visit a winery I've never been to before. In fact, I can check it off twice!

Over the past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of visiting two wineries I have never before visited, including Fenn Valley Vineyard in SouthWest Michigan (not far from where I grew up), and Loma Prieta Winery, located in Los Gatos, CA (less than an hour from the Santa Cruz coastline). Here's a little taste of my two very different (but both enjoyable!) experiences.

Fenn Valley Vineyards

At the beginning of August, B and I took our annual excursion to visit our families in Michigan. My family lives in SW Michigan, and my sister and brother-in-law were visiting from TX at the same time, so it was also a little bit of a family reunion of sorts.

Because B doesn't get loads of time off, we built in a little quality vacation time for just the two of us in the midst of the swirl of family. To accomplish that mission, we rented an AirBNB overnight on a sailboat at the Yacht Club and Marina in Saugatuck. Saugatuck is a charming little Lake Michigan Coast town, with plenty of cute shops and restaurants, and of course, the Lake.  I can't say that we'll ever take up residence packed tightly in a tiny v-birth sailboat for a night again in the future, but we LOVED drinking bubbly on the bow, watching the sunset across Lake Michigan, and soaking up a wholly new-to-us experience.

Fenn Valley Vineyards is just a short jaunt from charming little Saugatuck, tucked away in the Lake Michigan countryside, and we decided to check it out before reconnecting with my mom and step-Dad back "inland." With the slogan "The Lake Effect Everyone Loves," Fenn Valley has been a premier coastal MI wine producer for more than 4 decades.  Along with a variety of reds and whites, they also produce the famous "Michigan Cherry Wine" and even boast a few sparklers, which is a favorite style of mine (and probably a favorite style of ALL true wine lovers!) In fact, they day we visited Fenn Valley, they were disgorging their latest sparklers and had to close a portion of their operations to the public (they do daily wine production/facility tours) due to the natural CO2 release from the disgorgement. I guess that makes sense -- don't need anyone passing out due to lack of Oxygen!

My "everyday" wine drinking palette tends to prefer dry, high acid, citric white wines, so when we completed our tasting, it was a little surprising that my favorite wine of the day was a 2012 Late Harvest Vignoles. Apparently, weather conditions contributed to a very unique harvest that year, that ultimately resulted in an unusual, yet deliciously fragrant and sweet vintage. It was a nice, unexpected departure from my "usual", and a tasty reminder to allow myself to stay openminded and explorative when playing in the infinite possibilities world of wine.

If you find yourself in MI, I recommend a visit to Fenn Valley.  The tasting fees are low, and the pours are HEFTY. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

That's me and my hefty pour at Fenn Valley in SouthWest Coastal Michigan!

Loma Prieta Winery

Just days after B and I returned to MPLS, I hit the road again. This time, I was off to the West Coast where I was hosting a bachelorette party for one of my oldest and best(est) friends, WJ.  WJ lives in San Francisco, adjacent to Sonoma and Napa, which are arguably among the best wine valley regions in N. America and the world, and I've been lucky to spend a tiny little slice of time in both regions during past NoCal visits. Napa and Sonoma were both in the mix as potential locations for our Bachelorette weekend; however we ultimately decided to take a different tactic for the weekend and head down the coast to Santa Cruz for the weekend instead.

We had a "wild" bachelorette weekend in the literal sense that we spent a lot of our time soaking up nature, with an awesomely rejuvenating hike through the redwoods of Nisene Marks State Park and getting our Namaste on with a private cliffside yoga session overlooking the Pacific.  But it wouldn't be a #NoCal bachelorette without a winery visit, so we made sure to carve in time to visit the gem that is Loma Prieta.

Loma Prieta sits in the midst (and mist) of the Loma Prieta Mountain, about 45 minutes outside of Santa Cruz, in Los Gatos. The day we were there, the weather was an uncharacteristically warm 80 degrees, and the views stretched to infinity, offering a perfect setting for an afternoon of wine drinking.

Loma Prieta is considered a "boutique" winery, due to its limited production (less than 3K cases. For comparison sake, the Mammoth Mondavi sells MILLIONS of cases annually). Ironically, LP is the LARGEST producer of "Pinotage" in N. America.

For the uninitiated (which included me until a few weeks ago) "Pinotage" is a hybrid grape that was first born in S. Africa, in a marriage of Pinot Noir and a grape called Cinsault, which originated in Southern Rhone, France. LP does a fine job with this special hybrid. I especially enjoyed a unique Sparkling vintage (2014) Blanc de Noirs so much that I bought a bottle for WJ and her "fancy" (aka fiancee), and then I MADE THEM OPEN IT the night before I flew home, just so I could have a glass. Y'all already know I'm "Klassy-with-a-K" like that!

If you find yourself in Santa Cruz...or in San Fran...its well worth the trip to this, perhaps unexpected little winery outside of the "classics" of Napa and Sonoma that you may already know and love.  Need more convincing? Just check out the views!

Blue Skies, smiling at me at Loma Prieta Winery (hey! That rhymes!)

Cheers, mates! I can't wait to check a few more of my wine related items off my 2016 LIST!

Hello, World.

I've been pretty anxious lately. Out of sorts and off kilter, and feeling a bewildering mixture of completely 'blah' and apathetic in one breath, and then oscillating to feeling oversensitive and highly emotional in the next breath.  So, what's it going to be, mind? Do we care, or don't we?

I've been sweating the small stuff...and the big stuff. Some days, I just want to hide from the world and take a long nap or just veg in front of the TV all day and escape my reality until it's time to go to bed again. And, truth be told, some days I've done just that. Yay, depression and anxiety.

Today, I woke up on a trajectory of bland escapism. I had a bad dream last night (a dream that I can't even remember now), and when I woke, I felt a hollowness in the center of my body, the one that murmurs and hypnotizes, "eh, who cares if you don't do anything today...it doesn't matter"...immediately followed by feeling of low grade despair that threatened to set in a as a result of that 'nothing', hopeless feeling. Good old apathy with its sidekick, sadness.

But, I got up and I made myself a cup of coffee, and for some reason I felt that today was a day that, for my own sanity and peace, I really needed (NEEDED) to "fake the funk" and ignore the shades of blue and gray vibrating in my head. Honestly, I'm not sure how I managed to escape the  hijack and convince myself that, yes, it was a good idea to get up, get moving and do anything (ANYTHING at all!) rather than retreat from all action and the blurred incentives of vitality, but I did.  I got my ass right on up. And, I ended up having a pretty productive and enjoyable day, culminating in a bottle (ahem 2!) of wine with my husband out on the deck, under the twinkle lights of the stars above (or, more noticeably, our Amazon-ordered outdoor hanging globe lights) amidst a summer cool Minnesota evening.

My day wasn't anything exciting or extraordinary. I sorted through a lot of boxes left over from the move, and I worked on some household organization while B was busy sharpening his carpentry skills outside in our beautiful backyard, building custom University of Michigan Cornhole boards for our housewarming party coming up next Friday (and hey, if you live in the TCs, you know us, you were missed on the original invite, and you wanna come par-TAY next Fri at our place, please reach out! We'd love to see you! We're contemplating whipping up some Jell-o shots, like we're 21 again! Hey, we don't have kids, so this type of partying is a rational conclusion! Plus, we have a hot tub and a fire pit! Yessss!). We took a late lunch break for some Jimmy John's and DQ...and several hours later we enjoyed a late night dinner of grilled chicken and homegrown basil and tomatoes for a Caprese salad (and those 2 bottles of wine), along with a lively phone call to my older sister, E. Simple pleasures.

I also decided, in my desire to set a new course for my weary and muted mind, that today was a good day to get to 2016 List Tackling.  So, this evening, I headed to Yoga by Candlelight at my yoga home here in Minne.  I'd never been to the candlelit practice, though it's something I'd wanted to exeprience (#14 on the 2016 list).

Through the years, especially since moving to Minneapolis, practicing yoga has become one of my reliable safe havens, a place where I can go to feel connected to the world, to reintegrate when I'm "out of body" and all over the map with my anxiety. And tonight, yoga by candlelight offered just that.

To be fair, the candlelit class was a lot like regular yoga. Class commenced at 7, so the sun was still seeping in through the skylights, and the candlelight itself was more of a footnote than the main idea (not surprising at this time of the year). Still, I found myself practicing with a group of people that I don't always see in the classes I attend regularly. I think that practicing with those "new to me" people, that energy shift, was just what I needed.

At each yoga practice, we are encouraged to set an intention or a dedication for our practice that day. I usually pick a person I care about to dedicate my practice to, or a way of being that I'd like to encourage in myself (like "peaceful" or "empathetic"). Today, the words "hello, world" were what my mind mustered.  In my mind, "hello, world" meant that I wanted to focus on engaging with the world and with my emotions, rather than defaulting to ignoring those feelings, to hiding.

During savasana, our candlelit teacher read "The Guest House."  This poem was exactly what I needed to hear at this point in my life, on this day.  The Guest house is about accepting all of our emotions and feelings, good, bad and apathetic, and welcoming in the lessons that each of those emotions has to teach us. However unpleasant, we invite the experience of those emotions in, to learn from those feelings... and then we move on..."to make room for some new delight" (as the poem says).

So, here we are.  I'm going to flow with it, to float with it. To let go, and welcome whatever it is that surfaces.

"Hello, world."

The Big Stuff

I'm going to cut to the chase...it's been a rough summer.

The world seems to be in some sort of maddening tailspin of pain and suffering, rampant with unbridled and age-old racism, bigotry, oppression and terrorism, filled with a self-righteous overpopulation that often seems more focused on being "Christian, white and right" than on living with compassion and love and prioritizing common ground, equality and human kindness to all. This summer alone we've been witness to Philando Castile, Miami, Brexit, Nice, Dallas, Trump and Pence...and a list of other global human driven atrocities that grows longer by the day and by the hour.

But, I'm not completely hopeless about the big stuff. I know that our world is resilient and capable of positive change. I know that we can find our way to more peaceful, compassionate and equal footing for everyone.

I don't know the answers, but I know that change at least starts by acknowledging the realness of the problems we have and their complexities, by having deep and productive conversations about important issues even if they make us uncomfortable, by educating ourselves, and by getting involved in our communities and showing love and compassion to one another. Being a bystander and an apologist is not an option for me.  I plan to be a part of those big, important next steps. "One foot in front of the other." It's time to move forward.