Odd weather for this weekend's Holidays in the Vineyards (an oddly low-key set of 30 or 40 separate slightly special events): After a few days of welcome storms, we get sunshine and 67F--with more sunshine promised for tomorrow. Then back to the much-needed storms (if we get 40 or 50, mostly snow in the mountains, it might help).
My wife remembered that last year's Holidays in the Vineyards, at the same time, was high 30s or low 40s. The only bad thing about the clement weather: apparently the storms are too warm to cause enough sticking snow where we need it most. (In the Sierra Nevadas, that is.)
- walt crawford
Sunday followup: overcast. Also much less crowded (some kind of game between a mediocre Bay Area team and a really bad Bay Area team?). And encountered a really nice, balanced Livermore Valley chardonnay...at 14.6% alcohol, but no trace of heat. Occasio, but with 100 cases made, I don't think it leaves the valley.
- walt crawford
[Occasio is the winery, not my leaving an "n" off a word. Also $28, but once in a while we'll splurge. The other best wine of the day, Nottingham's Supremacy red blend...my wife liked it, but at $65 it was a little splurgier than we get.]
- walt crawford