west coast adventure: wine

My mom and I love wine. The Dionysian deliciousness helped inspire the whole vacation. Yes, like all the other lady tourists, we did wine tours and tastings in Napa, the amusement park for grown-ass women. It's crowded, a bit nauseating, full of over-priced souvenirs, and giddily fun.

We had a lovely start with Sterling Vineyards, which many travel guides refer to as the Disneyland of wineries. As you would expect, the wines weren't much good. Except for the Muscat Canelli dessert wine (13/100) which I could slurp down Capri Sun-Style. The best part of Sterling was the ride in to the tasting room: a gondola through the sky with amazing views of California countryside. It was better than the flying Dumbo rides.

We closed our first day of wine tasting at the Frank Family Vineyards because they serve champagnes (14/100). Coincidentally, Rich Frank, one of the owners of this winery, was a long time Disney executive. There were no rides except the bubble buzz.

On our way out to the coast, we happened upon the Francis Ford Coppola winery in Geyserville. While my mom got to see William Shatner at the airport, drinkin' Frank's Director's Cut Zinfandel (15/100) was as close as I got to any stars while in Cali.

Our final winery visit spun out of serendipity. We drove up from Northern California until we wanted to stop and landed in Eugene, Oregon. A woman at the motel recommended a Thai restaurant nearby. The waiter at the restaurant recommended an Oregon Chardonnay from King Estates (16/100) that's just the style my mom likes - more crisp than buttery with little oak.

We found out that King Estate Winery was right outside of Eugene, focused on sustainable practices, and had a restaurant to boot. Yes, please. We partook of an informative winery tour, unpretentious tasting, and a lunch with veggies grown on site. This was a winery that my mom actually considered buying wine from, but they didn't ship to Nebraska. You can't mail the magic kingdom.

celebrate good times, come on

The school organized a party to help us almost-Masters celebrate our hard work. For $25, we could embark on a boat cruise with unlimited food, drinks, and views of the Chicago skyline. A boat cruise? What a treat!

But then the day was overcast and rainy. And when I walked onto the boat, my classmates were already seated and eating the buffet food. Shouldn't we mingle and chat? No? Ok, I guess I'll get a drink then. The unlimited drinks were limited to Miller beers and Tisdale wines in red, pink, or white. Tisdale goes for $3.99 per bottle at my local wine store. Kenny G playing in the background, I grabbed a glass of white, a plate fulla food, and harrumphed into a seat. I assume this is what all cruises are like - (near) strangers trapped together in badly carpeted rooms trying to get the most of the money they've spent while grasping at fun.

The waiters filled and refilled glasses with red, pink, and white. Smooth jazz gave way to pop hits. Just like that - people went from early dinner to early dancing. The rain cleared while my head grew fuzzy. I mingled. I chatted. I had a handsome backdrop.

I stopped grasping and started having.

4/100

introducing: 100 drinks of summer

Though I haven't seen 500 Days of Summer nor do I own any music by She and Him, I followed the masses to Millenium Park to see Zooey D. and M. Ward play a free show a few nights ago. Crowded onto a blanket on a cozy patch of concrete, my friends and I chatted, picnic-ed, and drank wine out of Solo cups while the sweet music drifted over us.




Though not officially started, it has begun.

1/100

what is the making of memories?

Tonight I had a lovely alfresco dinner at restaurant with a BYOB policy. After a few beers, a salty terrine, and the fall of darkness, we opened the bottle of wine I brought. A name so clumsy - Wrongo Dongo. It's nice for a $7 per bottle wine and I was going to describe it but why? You can find it here and here and here.

You can learn baseball stats or record producers or all the varietals of wines and hold them tight in your mind. But you know they are best, fist unclenched, shared. I hold none of that tight but instead experience just the sips. Why can I not conserve, preserve, then serve? What does the fleeting do?

the first supper

I managed to make it through another set of finals. This is a privileged triumph following a few weeks rife with privileged complaining.

In the days leading up to the end, it helped me get through to think about what I would do when I had free time again. Laundry! Books for fun! Cooking a real, healthy meal! I even bought ingredients to make a dinner that had distinct elements that sat apart from each other on the plate and complimented each other. Nothing special but it sounded exquisite - fish, collard greens, and scalloped taters spiked with some fancy cheese finished with fresh baked banana bread ice cream sammiches.

But when it came time for the first supper of freedom, all I wanted was a buffet of finger foods and a bottle of a hearty, cheap, red wine. I needed to nibble and sip for hours. I popped olives in my mouth, plucked pomegranate seeds from the fruit, and traced patterns in the hummus with crackers.

After a few weeks of big bites and big tasks, it needed to be small. Well, except for the wine.

Summer Sips

I should have been making hatch marks to tally the number of Tecates I've swilled this summer. While that's the official beer of summer '09, there are a number of other drinks that have tasted like the season.

• Cheap, ideally twist-top wines consumed out of Solo cups while soaking up the summerfuntime at free concerts in Millenium Park. Euphoria.


• Sangria at a burger and beer joint. Hackney's really decent sangria just has bits of apple and orange in it and always makes me want another.


• The iced coffee sweetened with local honey that I brew and fridge each week. Always consumed out of a blue travel mug I've had for ages, this coffee makes me attuned and appreciative of the city I pass through between bus stop and revolving door.

Finally, I have to snag another of Mario's Italian Lemonade before the season is out. More than just Italian ice, there's chunks of fruit frosted in those little paper cups too. Check out delicious cantaloupe Italian lemonade.

what we do when we're alone

While I have had some lovely drinking experiences this summer (including a hefty liter of German beer The Brau Haus and a few amazing Belgian beers at The Hopleaf), it's too late to write about those. The precious immediacy is past.

Now I'm drinking my way through a bottle of Trinity Oaks' Pinot Noir, a cheap wine that was on sale at Whole Foods. There is little to recommend it beyond its low low price and claim that the company plants a tree for each bottle of wine purchased. That makes me feel good as I engage in hedonism/laziness watching episodes of old episodes Check, Please! on my laptop and gorging myself on finger foods.

the grape doesn't fall far from the vine

I really have the most amazing family. Everything you could hope for - smart, loving, comfy hedonists with a penchant for rocknroll who have lived just enough tragi-comic moments to lend credence to a memoir with a true midwestern aesthetic.

My mom spearheaded a cross-country roadtrip from Nebraska to North Carolina with her brother and father with a pitstop in here Chicago. This in and of itself is awesome. We all got together with second-cousin/uncle/future country music chart topper, Bill and his sassy lassy lady friend, LeAnn. Lemme tell you, we had a good time. We had pre-dinner drinks, dinner and drinks, and dessert and drinks. You've gotta take Bill and LeAnn's advice if you go to Bandera. Get the prime rib and grilled artichoke with a 7&7 or dirty martini or glass of wine (or all three) to wash it down. Cheers!