Cheering for the Evil Empire

Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you and your families are enjoying some fun times.

We have definitely been neglecting our blog entries over the past 2 1/2 months, so stay tuned for a bunch of entries over the next few days.

Three months ago, I blogged about what I thought the Yanks would do over the winter to prepare for the 2009 season, which you can read about in detail here.

For those who don't want the full deal, let's recap, ok?

• Cashman stays - CHECK.
• Giambi is gone - CHECK.
• Abreu offered arbitration and the Yanks will leave it at that - DING. No arbitration offered.
• Pavano is gone - CHECK.
• Pettite is gone - Still outstanding, but most likely I think I will end up being right on this one.
• Mussina will be offered a one-year deal - DING. He retired before a deal came about.
• Cano will be traded - Still outstanding, but most likely I will be wrong on this one.
• CC is not coming to the Yanks - DING. OK, we know how wrong I was on that one. Welcome CC!
• AJ is coming to the Yanks - CHECK.
• No Ben Sheets - Still outstanding, but most likely I think I will end up being right on this one.
• No K-Rod - CHECK.
• No Derek Lowe - Still outstanding, but most likely I think I will end up being right on this one.
• Brian Fuentes to the Yanks - Still outstanding, but most likely I will be wrong on this one.

So thus far, my score is 5 correct (CHECK), 3 incorrect (DING), 3 trending correct, 2 trending correct.

Now I am unsure how to score the Mark Texiera deal in terms of my predictions since I left him out completely. I just assumed Boston would get him as they felt they had a glaring need there. But HOLY COW (to channel Phil Rizzuto)! Cashman pulling that off in stealth mode was a huge surprise. I am still unsure if I am more happy that the Red Sox didn't get him or that he is going to be playing for the Yanks!

But I'll tell you that I am really excited for the 2009 season. Bring it on!

Nothing posted in a while so…

Wow, we are getting lazy (or busy elsewhere) and haven't blogged in a while. Here are some photos I took today. The Olympic Mountains looked amazing yesterday, so I took a shot today. Unfortunately, the air quality has deteriorated because it's cold and people are burning fires to stay warm.

And just a decent sunset so I took a shot.

Mama said there`d be days like this

It's been a crazy few months so I am catching up on some overdue blog entries. This blog entry is about October 19, 2008 and what turned out to be a really, really good day.

We were in San Francisco for a couple of reasons - I was running in the Nike 1/2 Marathon to raise money for JDRF and we had to take care of some very important business for Purple Teeth Cellars. Fun stuff.

The day started out with a pretty early wake-up call, particularly because the race started where we were staying - Union Square. So both Marc and I were up at 5:30am - what a guy. Marc and I drove the course the day before to get a sense of where we would be meeting up during the race, so after a delayed breakfast, we were ready to go.

The race weather was actually pretty favorable and I was pleased with my time of 2 hours, 13 minutes given how steep the hills were. My PR ('personal record' for the non-runners) was 2 hours and 9 minutes, so I was ecstatic particularly because I managed the race well and finished very strong.

After finding Marc, we high-tailed it back to the hotel because Big Blue was on TV because they were playing the San Francisco 49'ers. Watch our post-race celebration here. This is a good thing because I rarely get to see my Giants on TV living in Seattle so the fact we were in SF while their team was playing Big Blue... this was good. The Giants ended up winning and the Cowboys ended up losing, so the day is going well.

Marc and I spent the afternoon over at our winemaking facility pressing some grapes from our 2008 vintages, which was educational for the both of us. Then it was time to gear up for dinner at Michael Mina for lobster pot pie. For those of you who like lobster, Mina's lobster pot pie is just pure goodness and decadence. You can check out the presentation here. The sommelier paired it with a '04 Domaine de L'Arlot Nuit Saint Georges 1er Cru. Great stuff.

And the unexpected bonus came at the end of the evening when we found out that the Boston Red Sox were eliminated from the playoffs by the upstart Tampa Bay Rays. Unfortunately they ended up losing to the Philadelphia Phillies, but as a Yanks fan - it's always "anyone but the Red Sox".

Other restaurants we visited during our stay included Quince (with Cousin Claire and Arnie, who had some of our barrel samples from our '07 Purple Teeth Cellars vintages) and A16 (with Anne-Cecile and Dan). A16 - stick to the pizzas and pastas. Quince - try everything.

All in all, it ended up being a great day - but the important thing is to give a special shout-out to Marc, for being awesome, per usual, in supporting me for the race and just for being him.

A really good day

The trip overall had been really good up until this point. The Giants beat the Seahawks. I got to see my nephews. I got to reconnect with Oswego after not being there for over 15 years and the weather was perfect. I met some cool students and have re-established some contacts with some professors and staff on campus. Actually before I talk about Tuesday and presenting at the Women's Conference, I should talk about the previous night – dinner at the home of Deborah Stanley, the President of Oswego State.

The President lives in a house called Shady Shore and it always seemed like it was the cool place that was right on the lake that I was paying for, yet never benefitted from. I learned later that was more of a function of the personality of the person living there. I was invited to dinner there with 2 other speakers for the Women's Conference, along with some other folks who are associated with fundraising and the Alumni Office. I show up and Deborah (she is so not a formal person) already has a glass of red wine in her hand. OK, cool.

All I can say is that I was just bowled over about how gracious of a host she was. She explained the history of the house as well as some of the furniture, which was really fun to hear about. She wanted to know what I talked to the students about and what I picked up on from the students. Really engaging – actually both her and her husband, Michael. Deborah was telling us that they have buffet dinners with students on a regular basis and people are just sitting on the floor hanging out and chatting. It's a very comfortable layout given the style of the house as well as all of the antiques inside. We discussed the current situation with the meltdown and how do you incorporate ethics into students' everyday thinking. It was an interesting dialogue.

Anyway back to the Women's Conference. I was pretty nervous about speaking partly because all of my experience is pretty much big city and corporate. The demographic of the audience was mostly women, some students, but mostly women in the workforce of varying ages, who all lived in Central Upstate New York. So I was concerned that my experiences wouldn't resonate with them.

As I worked on my preparing my thoughts, I thought of the overall theme of the conference, "Change, Growth and Vision". So I decided to talk about different phases of my career at a high level and have each slide have an area where I laid out where I made a mistake. I figured if I was transparent about my mistakes in my career, it may make me more genuine to the audience (I was also younger than probably 75% of the audience by about 8-10 years). When you're talking about your mistakes, it makes you take yourself less seriously, so I was throwing in some of the funnier things that happened in my career.

I tried to get a sense of the demographic in terms of people contemplating career changes, business owners, students, etc. That helped a little in terms of my talking points. I was trying to make eye contact with as many people as possible as it was a big room and I'm a vertically challenged person who was not on a podium. I felt as though my message was resonating but when I was done, I was pretty beat. The audience asked some great questions about what I talked about, so I was really pleased about that because clearly they were paying attention.

But my work was not done. I had mentioned in the 'Students' blog post about a woman named Rachel, the non-traditional student who served 4 years in the military before coming to school. When I saw that she came to the presentation, I gave her a heads-up that I may put her on the spot but to trust me. At the end of the presentation, I asked everyone to raise their hands if they would value military experience in a prospective employee if your job opening had absolutely had nothing to do with the military. Everyone's hands went up. I then told Rachel to stand up, introduced her to the crowd (everyone clapped), and basically informed Rachel that she now had a room full of people who probably could help her if she asked. She was stunned and a little embarrassed, but she saw what I was trying to do and that was to get her to believe in herself. I guess she never thought I would take an interest like that, but wherever she got the idea that her military background, combined with her maturity around going back to school with a young family, would work against her – I don't know. She actually sent me an e-mail later thanking me for helping her out and included some other nice thoughts. It is a good day when you can make an impact like that.

Finally my day ended with me rushing to the airport to catch a flight to NYC to spend the night before getting the early morning flight back to Seattle. Facebook has reconnected me with lots of people from my high school and college days that I haven't talked to in years. One of those people was my friend, Tisa, whom I met at Oswego where we were both in the same dorm for freshman year. We also did crew together (she rowed, I cox'ed…. Not very well) and ended up studying abroad in London the same semester but with different programs. I hadn't seen her in about 15 years. So we met at Volare, where the boys took great care of us and Tisa got lots of leftovers because of the insane portions. It was so good catching up with her. She looks great and is doing some great non-profit work with adults trying to learn basic math skills.

It was a great way to end the day, although I decided to stay up and watch the debate re-run, which ended up being 90 minutes of missed sleep. That wasn't smart because I went to bed at 2am and needed to be up at 5:30am for my flight back to Seattle. Oh well. It was an outstanding day, so it was all worth it.

Passing on wisdom to current students

As mentioned earlier, the Women's Conference that I was asked to speak at was on Tuesday, so I volunteered to speak to some School of Business classes on Monday. My 1^st class was at 9:10am, which was really 6:10am for me. But I knew that the students would probably be somewhat comatose because of the "early hour" for them and the fact it was a Monday. I was excited because the person teaching the class was one of the professors whom I really held in very high regard because he treated students like adults from the get-go. This was Dr. Ken Shaw, who always went by Ken, even when I was one of his students.
This was a sophomore level class so I knew that there was a good chance that most of the students were not in the mode of asking career-oriented questions. So I just tried to make the most of the 3 or 4 people asking questions. One student, Andy, asked a great question based on some of the work I am doing at Microsoft with regards to Unlimited Potential and how it impacts our competition with Apple (the answer is, "it doesn't", but good question). Ken tried to get more people engaged and tried to facilitate more dialogue. One student in the front, Rachel, raised a question and basically called me out for giving advice that definitely geared towards the more traditional college student (18-23 year old) as opposed to the non-traditional students. On campus, they are known as 'non-trads'.
Rachel's feedback was completely fair, and so I asked more about her background. She had served in the military for 4 years, so she is slightly older, has some more maturity than your typical student, and is also married with a 2-year old. Rachel actually had concerns around the fact that because she was "older" that recruiters wouldn't take her seriously. Maybe she was 22 or 23, 25 max, so clearly not "old". Plus she was concerned that as someone pursuing a degree in Management Accounting, recruiters would not think her time in the military was relevant experience. In my experience, that couldn't be further from the truth. I felt she might be more comfortable at the talk I was giving at the Women's Conference and invited her to come as my guest – more on that in a different post.
After class, I was talking to Ken and we were both lamenting about the fact that his seniors would have gotten more out of my experience than his sophomores. So I asked when his senior classes were, and I was free during one of them. That made for a hectic day and that café in the School of Business ended up coming in handy. J

I then had the pleasure of going to Bill Lundy's (aka Lundo or Wild Bill). I had e-mailed him prior to coming up to see if he wanted me to cover any specific topics but never heard from him. So I wasn't sure if he even remembered me. He sees me in the hallway, just lets out a huge laugh and yells, "Jill Consor!" It was hysterical. It got even funnier when he asked what his prized pupil (Lisa A.) was doing. When I told him that she was an organic farmer, he almost fell over. The best part is that the Alumni photographer happened to be taking pictures at that moment, so I can't wait to see how those turned out.
What is unfortunate is that Lundo and Spector are no longer teaching upper-level Accounting classes because of some accreditation rule that requires all of the teachers of upper level courses to have PhDs in Accounting. Huh? So if my friend, Nancy, a partner at E&Y, wanted to teach Auditing (an upper-level course) at Oswego, now she has to get a PhD? I don't get it. And the students lose out. I can say that while taking Lundo's class was super hard, it gave me a unique perspective on Accounting. What a bummer. Lundo is also retiring at the end of the calendar year. I hope he stays in touch as he was the one who made it possible for me study abroad and graduate in 4 years, which is nearly impossible to do at Oswego.
Again it was Intro Accounting, so it was sophomores and some juniors. But given my Accounting degree, I figured there might be more questions. Of course in this section, there were NO Accounting majors. But there were more students engaged and someone from the Alumni Office snapped some pictures of me talking to students, which I found to be funny. Lundo has mellowed A LOT, although all of his students still think he is crazy but I didn't see any evidence of it. Again, these kids are soft and have it easy. And for those of you who had Lundo, he still uses those overhead transparent sheets to explain concepts to the class. Some things don't change.
After that was International Business with Dr. Khan. He was not teaching at Oswego when I was there, but he was incredibly welcoming and happy that I was taking the time to talk to his students, mostly seniors and some juniors. Unfortunately we again had a handful of students asking questions, with a fair amount of the students not paying attention. I guess they have it all figured out, but that's fine. The students that are keen on getting help will seek it out. I spent a lot of time talking about my international experiences, which I consider myself so lucky to have.
Then we had my final class of the day back with Ken. It was pretty much all seniors. This was the most polarizing class in terms of extreme interest and extreme arrogance. For the latter group, I had to literally stop myself from giving these kids too much of a reality check. It is kind of hard to describe the vibe, but it was shocking and this was the class of mostly seniors! There was such a sense of entitlement in this class and this was the day that that the Dow dropped 500 points!! The other classes had some people who had a little entitlement going on, but mostly because they were underclassmen, they didn't think that career stuff affected them now. I never really believed that even when I was a student, but I can understand the perspective so it doesn't really bother me that much.
The arrogance and sense of entitlement bother me a great deal. I keep hearing it is a generational thing. I don't know. All I know is that I was disappointed in the attitudes that I saw in more students than not. Curiosity was more the exception than the norm. And these kids (the traditional students) are so micro-managed by their parents. One student has a credit card and never even heard of the term 'credit check' or 'credit report' (yes, she was from Long Island – a couple of towns away from where I grew up). When I was running later on in the day, I was trying to think about how do you make these kids feel more accountable for their own destinies? Couldn't come up with anything that could be implemented and truly effective.
But there were a handful of students that were engaging, concerned and prepared. I'm glad they were concerned because it showed me that at least they were paying attention to what is going on outside of campus. I hope those students reach out to me because they are the ones that I would be willing to help because they understand that the jobs are not going to just land on their lap. I don't know if anyone can say that a job just landed on someone's lap coming from Oswego. I mean if you had stellar grades like Lisa did, maybe? But she worked her ass off and no one begrudged her success because they knew her work ethic was second to none. Lisa was also more mature than a lot of other people at Oswego. She definitely had the big picture in mind. And now that big picture is an organic farm, which is awesome because now she gets to apply her smarts to something she is truly passionate about.
One of the interesting takeaways from that class was listening to a student named Bobby. You can tell that he was completely freaked by having too much information at his disposal on networking, interviewing, etc. Whereas I think we didn't have a lot of information at our disposal, I think some students may be overwhelmed with advice. Then of course there was the student who said he had an interview on Monday, but asked if he should prepare a resume to bring. Hmmmm.
The next day I was meeting 3 students to talk about a winery supply chain project that they were working on. Given that I am the Chief Advocate of Purple Teeth at Purple Teeth Cellars LLC, it seemed like a good idea. I was told that they were 3 hockey players, which normally wouldn't be relevant but when they introduced themselves, they were nicely dressed but one of them had a black eye from a recent game. He had a good sense of humor about it; I guess you have to as a hockey player, right?
They are basically conducting a survey of wineries in the Finger Lakes and Long Island regions to see if they can identify process improvements. An alumnus, also a former hockey player, has a supply chain management business and is thinking about expanding into winemaking supplies. The idea is that they would make recommendations, similar to what consultants do, and try and build a business out of it. So it was Brendan, Mark and Mike in the conference room. Of course, the Alumni photographer came in and said, "Pretend like I am not here". OK, sure.
They did some good analysis, but like when I was in college, they are not wine drinkers. I had to explain to them that people go into winemaking because they love the art and science of it. They love wine. They don't necessarily do it to make millions of dollars in profit, and this is especially true of their target demographic of small and independent wineries. So I had to explain to them in a non-hypocritical way that they needed to drink wine in a way that didn't involve chugging, funnels, keg stands, etc.
I give them props for taking that feedback well. I gave them some thoughts on how they learn the basics of wine without spending a ton of money, and offered to provide some help where I could. I also told them that if they are doing supply chain management work for wineries that they should see if they can volunteer on a weekend in the next couple of months because this is the time of the year where "everything is happening" with the picking, crush, de-stemming, etc. They'll be able to gain more credibility with their prospective customers if they have attempted to walk some part of the walk. I hope they do it but I know that with hockey season having 2x/day practices, it is going to be tough to fit it in. But again, they were very polite, had lots of enthusiasm, and had lots of great ideas. While it wasn't the smoothest presentation, they came prepared and asked some good questions. I left impressed.
Oh and I mentioned the lack of attendance at The Shed on the previous night to the students. They didn't have any excuses given playoff baseball and Sunday Night Football, along with the associated drink specials. A few were embarrassed and asked if I wanted to meet them there on Monday or Tuesday evening. Between dinner with the President of SUNY Oswego and my flight to NYC, I had to take a pass. That could have been interesting.

Reminiscing on the campus tour

I started my day with Michelle of the Alumni Office taking me to breakfast at one of the dining halls. We ate at Lakeside, the dining hall that served the Scales, Waterbury, Johnson and Riggs dorms. The wind started to show itself as I figured it would. Lakeside has been completely renovated and still provides awesome views of Lake Ontario. It wasn't like Pathfinder or Cooper, the dining halls that I typically ate in when I was a student. Both Johnson and Riggs have also been renovated extensively, and look great. And neither one of them are single-sex either. Johnson is a freshman-only dorm now, and they have special leadership programs for those students to get involved certain activities.
I'm going to talk about my impressions of the campus before I get into what happened in class today. Michelle also gave me a tour of the campus and she invited a current student to join us. It was cool because I graduated in '93, Michelle graduated in '98 and the student, LaTasha, is graduating in '09. So I was able to get many of my questions answered on when certain things were changed.
Lonis and Moreland, part of the Mackin "complex" – the dorms that were the closest to The Shed, are now singles for seniors. That's pretty cool because when I was there, those dorms were definitely not the places you wanted to live in, although given the proximity to the bars, I now question that logic. Hart and Funnelle look the same. Scales and Waterbury have not been renovated yet. Michelle called going in there a time warp and you still have to walk outside from Scales when you go to Lakeside to eat, which must stink given the proximity to the lake and of course, the wind. New Campus, which consists of Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga and Oneida, looks the same except for recent paint jobs on Seneca and Onondaga.
LaTasha's student ID was good enough to get us into the Seneca dorm and the lobby looked exactly the same in every way possible. Yes, pictures will be posted. I remember the rugby players pulling pranks like putting stinky cheese in the elevators (what a waste of stinky cheese, right?), etc. No, we didn't go upstairs but I didn't get the sense that the rooms changed all that much. The buildings in the center of campus like Mahar, Lanigan and Penfield looked the same pretty much, although Penfield now has a coffee shop/café inside, which is handy. Of course, the reference area is now devoid of any evidence of card catalogs and microfiche and is full of computers. But an area that we used to study in on the 1^st floor, the Documents room is gone. They just put some sheetrock there and use it for library offices. Come to think of it, I would love to know if anyone recalls seeing a student or professor ever use those 'Documents' in the room?
Park, Piez and Snygg look the same. I learned later that those buildings, which house Natural Sciences, Computer Science and Mathematics, are next in terms of major renovations. That should be cool once they finish that.
The big news is that Hewitt Union is pretty much on its last legs. The only things that seem to be left in there are the actual book store, which is different than the campus store where you would be Oswego State merchandise. There are a handful of offices still there, but no major student activity seems to go on there. That is because Oswego State renovated Swetman Hall, former home of the School of Business, to be home of the new Campus Center.
The Campus Center is now home to the aforementioned campus store, numerous cafes, lounges, smoothie bars, Career Center, media (WTOP, WNYO and the Oswegonian), meeting rooms, Study Abroad Office, amongst other organizations. It is bright, well laid out and way more accessible for students to not have to go back to their dorms or off-campus for something decent to eat. It is also home to the new hockey arena, which is very cool. No more schlepping to Rommey for games, and during the day, they let students rent skates and host an open skate session. Way to share it with the students. I had the opportunity to meet 3 of the hockey players (more on that in the other posts) and they think it is awesome because the crowds are way better.
In essence, they very shifted the center of campus away from Hart/Funnelle and Hewitt Union, and moved it to Swetman/Poucher. Oh yeah, Poucher was also significantly renovated. So I don't think Swetman really exists anymore in how we might remember it, but Poucher still has classes – English, Education, Foreign Language Labs, I think. More lounges and rooms for students to meet up in between classes. Really cool. I thought it was great they moved the Career Center, now called Compass, to a place friendlier to students. I remember it being in Culkin Hall, which was and still is administration, and who would want to go there. I don't think I ever did in retrospect. Oh and the Centro buses now stop at the Campus Center vs. the back of Hewitt Union where the dumpsters were. That's a plus, right?
So you are probably wondering where the School of Business is, right? When we (meaning my classmates) were there, Rich Hall was used for Foreign Languages – I hated schlepping there for French because I basically had to walk from one end of campus to another, being on New Campus and all. On the other side of Rich Hall was Public Safety. Well I don't know where Public Safety is now and that has to be a bonus that I didn't need to find out, but the entire building is now the School of Business.
The best way to compare Swetman to Rich in its current form is like thinking we had the Best Western and the current students have the Four Seasons. No offense to anyone who stays at the Best Western, but these digs are palatial in comparison. The new building opened up in 2003 (?) and it has everything you need for presenting seamlessly from your laptop, wireless, café, meeting rooms, lounges, etc. BASAC is still there as well. It was pretty cool to see that they made such an investment. I'll post some pics on that too. I must have looked like a complete dork (ok, I'm typically a dork anyway but still) taking pictures because I was really impressed. Different recycling bins were in every classroom that I saw – people seemed to take it seriously, which was cool.
After speaking to the classes, I went for a run around campus in preparation for my ½ marathon. There was no excuse not to run because it was absolutely perfect running weather – clear, sunny and high 50s. I did a 5 mile loop, which included a bit of off campus too. "The Blues", right near the soccer fields and Rommey, are still there and are still very blue. LOL. My run took me around the New Campus area loop, so yep, there was Glimmerglass Lagoon (that was for you, Lisa A.), and there was a ton of construction going on over by where the Hidden Fields are.
So think about coming into the main entrance of campus and taking the 1^st left, and that is where the construction is. They are building suite apartments, so like Onondaga but with actual kitchen facilities, that will house 350 students. Demand is very high for that kind of living arrangement on campus, and it looks like they just broke ground recently. Since I was doing my run, no pictures but right now there are just a bunch oversized Tonka trucks on the land.
I was really looking forward to the tour when the Alumni Office put together my schedule, and I'm glad that I wasn't disappointed. But it looks like even more changes are afoot, which should be great for the students, professors and the rest of the community.

Initial impressions from Oswego

I'm back in Oswego at the request of the SUNY Oswego Alumni Office. I still have about $150 in parking tickets outstanding and with compounding interest, I now owe about 700 BILLION dollars. OK, I jest – no parking tickets. They asked me to speak at their annual Women's Conference and since it's on a Tuesday, I will also speaking at 3 School of Business classes on Monday. I flew into Syracuse after a brief visit with my family, where I found out that Harrison (Glenn and Gwen's son) answers "Obama" when asked who he is going to vote for and that he knows Food Network stars Giada, Paula, Emeril and Rachel. And Harrison knows that Emeril says "BAM!" My other nephew, Jeffrey (Lisa and Jarrett's son), is starting to respond to questions and knows how to signal "Touchdown!" Fun times.
I landed in Syracuse late on Sunday afternoon and noticed that the airport was slightly bigger than when I was late there in 1993. As I was walking towards the rental car counter, I wasn't looking for anyone I knew but all of a sudden I saw a former manager of mine (manager kind of understates it, she was SEVERAL levels above me) who I always considered a great role model. She immediately recognized me and we caught up for a few minutes. She was in the area at her alma mater, Hamilton College, where she is on the Board. You can't make this stuff up.
BTW, I am trying to be hip on this trip since I am going to be speaking to students. I know that is not my normal M.O., but one must stretch themselves out of their comfort zone. Figured I would check out a former hangout or two during my time in Oswego. Unfortunately due to a PGA tour event being in the area, rental car pickings were slim and I am now driving a white mini-van through Tuesday afternoon. And the rear door is so big that I can barely reach it to slam it shut. It's not easy being vertically challenged. Hmmm.
I cruised up Rte. 481 and noticed some landmarks, like the Great Northern Mall, which was the only decent shopping mall in the area for the 1^st couple of years I was at Oswego. Because most of us didn't have cars, it was a big deal to take the bus there to shop at places like the Gap, etc. In my junior year, a larger mall opened up closer to the city of Syracuse that had a larger selection of stores, including Ann Taylor, home of where I purchased my 1^st interview suit. Wow, I'm dating myself. Anyway I also passed a sign that has provided years of entertainment in the form of another "Proud Consor Family Moment".
The 1^st couple of trips up to Oswego for me to check out the school were with Puff Daddy. Freshman orientation was the 1^st time my Mom and sister came up. I guess Big Yves (my Mom) slept for most of the ride up, which meant she missed signs like Mexico, New York, or Florida, New York, etc. You get the point. So when I checked into orientation, Lisa (my sister) came up to see the dorm room. She noticed that my roommate was from Mexico, New York. OK, fine. My mother asked Lisa about my room and roommate, and she told her that the person was from Mexico thinking she has seen the signs for the different towns on the way up. Well apparently at the 'Parents and Family BBQ', my mother is talking to another family with Lisa and Puff Daddy sitting right there, and belts out in all seriousness, "Jill is getting a real cultural experience! Her roommate is from Mexico!" Needless to say I was so thankful I was not there and I think if Puff Daddy and Lisa could have left my mother there at that moment, I think they would have. The embarrassment factor was that high.
Back to current day. As I approached the town of Fulton, I noticed a couple of landmarks; most notable to me was the Jeep dealership that my car seemed to visit on a quarterly basis when I was at Oswego. I knew there was a road that ran parallel to Rte. 481 (the main road between Syracuse and Oswego) on the other side of the river because of my crew days. So I decided to take the last 10 miles on Rte. 48 to see if I could find the old factory that served as the backdrop for our very shaky dock. I did find it in the town of Minetto, but clearly the dock is gone. I'll have to ask in the classes to see if there is still a crew team and if so, find out where they practice. But as soon as I walked past the gate, I knew I had the right place. Other than the makeshift dock being gone, nothing had really changed about the place. Yes, I have a couple of pictures.
The weather was pretty much perfect fall weather. Fall foliage is starting to take shape and the sun was out. I had some time before my dinner with Betsy of the Alumni Relations Office, so I decided to swing by the house that I lived in off-campus with Lisa. It looked exactly the same, which was a kick. As I was driving around the residential neighborhoods off-campus, most of the houses actually seemed the same. It was kind of funny. Lisa A., you should know that the taxidermist is no longer at the end of the block.
With respect to the areas of town I was able to see before dinner, Admiral Woolsey's, where I bussed tables, is no more. The structure is there and was completely gutted out with a new restaurant. The deck and outside look the same, but the inside is very different, although some of the bar chairs look very familiar from when I worked in the same building 15+ years ago. I should know as I lifted plenty of them. J

Betsy and I had a nice dinner, and she gave me the keys to my room on campus in Sheldon Hall, which I think is right near where I remember the AEPhi and DK houses to be (see current map here). She then told me that some students are also residing in the same building because of dorm overcrowding, so then I had to ask if I was sharing a bathroom with the other residents. It wouldn't have been horrible, but it honestly never occurred to me to ask prior to that point. BTW, the answer was no. I have my own bathroom. The room actually ended up being very nice.
After dinner, I decided to cruise around town. I couldn't find a couple of bars that I remember frequenting – Barney's, Shaki Patch (where I guest bartended once), and of course I knew that Broadwell's and Buckland's cease to exist many years ago. New York Pizzeria is gone. There is a huge McDonald's and gas station on all of that property now, but the Friendly's is still there. The Oswego Sub Shop is still there, as are the BPOE, Canale's and Vona's and Bridie Manor – places I never gave a thought to once I graduated. Of course, the Woodshed Tavern (aka The Shed) is still there so I decided to go in figuring there would be some action given it was Sunday, football and baseball are both on, and the fact that HELLO, we're in Oswego. Every night is a drinking night.
Clearly the current crop of students is soft. Maybe 10-15 people were in the bar tops, including me and the bartender. No TVs were on. The atmosphere was too depressing so I left for my room. Maybe there will be a bigger crowd for Monday Night Football. But you know I will bring this up in the classes I am speaking in tomorrow. And yes, I did get pictures of The Shed. It was easy because it was so empty. But it looks exactly the same as when we were there. The pizza place attached to The Shed is still there. Perkins is gone. I need to see if Old City and The Wheel are still around.
Tomorrow (Monday), I'll get a tour of the campus in addition to talking to students. I have been told it has changed a lot! I'm also having coffee with the Dean of the School of Business, and then dinner at the University President's house with some of the other speakers at the Women's Conference. Should be an interesting day, but I'm really hoping for the chance to get in a run around the campus along Lake Ontario. Stay tuned.

Food porn – yes, you heard me right

I know we have been back for 3 weeks and while I was completely on the case in terms of getting the pictures posted to Facebook and Shutterfly, I know that I was completely lame on providing some commentary to go along with the food pictures – or food porn as some of you called it. Now I know that porn is technically not a family-friendly word, so allow me to apologize for that right now. But the title is not changing and that's that. 

We hit so many awesome restaurants on our recent trip to Europe that I felt like that I needed to go to Cirque Lodge (you know the place where the stars go for detox or recover from "exhaustion") for food re-hab. I'm serious. I was foie gras'ed out. I mean, it was all incredible but it was full on eating and drinking for 16 days. I was thankful that I was training for my ½ marathon (still am) because that was the only way that my clothes were going to fit when we returned back to the States.

I'm not going to name every restaurant we ate at, but will mention the notable ones. The 2 "special ones" (in this case, "special" is good; normally in my family, "special" doesn't necessarily have a good connotation) will get a separate blog posting because they were restaurants that could potentially make it into my Top 5 of all time. I have a feeling that decision will come to me as I am typing this on my plane ride to NYC to see my nephews – and the rest of the family, too. :-)

The 1^st full day in Bordeaux, and in Europe for that matter, was marked by watching CNN announce Sarah Palin's coming out party – you already know my thoughts on that, as well as some wine tasting. That evening, we ate at the Relais de Margaux gastronomic (or gastronomique) restaurant – that means fancy, gourmet, rich, over-the-top. Yeah, you get the idea. Marc had the first of his many jamon/jambon experiences and we had pretty amazing chocolate dessert. Too bad we were so tired from staying up all day that we barely made it to dessert and back to the room.

The next day was actually one of the best food days on the trip. We ate at Café Lavinal in Pauillac on the Left Bank. It was a beautiful day and the menu was fairly traditional French. I had some perfectly seasoned duck, and Marc had a roasted chicken that was as good as we have both ever tasted. See, the French treat chicken with respect by not just using plain chicken breasts but by roasting it to extract all of the flavors. Wow. That evening, we were told to eat at Lion D'Or. It's where the local winemakers go and eat, and given it was a Saturday night, we were psyched to have scored a table. If it's good enough for the local Bordeaux winemakers, it was good enough for us. More roasted chicken for Marc and I had some steak with béarnaise sauce. Lovely. The chef came out, said hi, and made sure everything was ok. He was making the rounds throughout the restaurant – very cool. Then we see him pull a chair from another table, sits down with some of his friends and drink some wine. Awesome.

In St. Emilion (Right Bank), we hit some nice restaurants, including Clos de Roy, which was featured in some of the pictures on Facebook (talk about pornographic with the foie gras), L'Envers du Décor, amongst others. L'Envers du Décor is where we first saw the decanter that looks like an oversized Margarita glass that has been included in some pics. All kidding aside, it is a great decanter for younger wines because it allows air to get into more of the wine quickly because of the surface area.

As we went down to Sauternes and Pessac-Léognan (also in Bordeaux), we had the opportunity to stay at Les Sources de Caudalie (awesome – just go, relax, get spa treatments, eat and drink). It's owned by the same folks who own Château Smith Haute-Lafitte, who make some excellent wines. We had dinner at their "casual" restaurant, which was still pretty crazy with the food options. Marc didn't see a ton of things on the menu that he liked, so we went with the steak for 2. It was so well seasoned (read: SIMPLE) and tender, but it was unfortunate that it was more like steak for 6 as opposed to steak for 2. Next time someone complains about French portion sizes too small, I'm going to have some issues with that individual. We had lunch at a great place in the middle of Sauternes called Le Saprien. The next night, we ate at La Table de Montesquieu in La Brède. I think that place won for best jambon, but to be fair, it was jamon from Spain as opposed to being from France. I also had some terrific monkfish in a beurre blanc, so I was happy.

In Basque Country, we hit San Sebastian which had its share of restaurants – grand and not-so-grand. We checked out Senor Arzak's (more on him later) favorite tapas bar – Bar Haizea – and I probably had more fun than Marc did because of the fresh seafood and mushroom tapas offerings. Tapas bars typically have you eat at the bar and just throw your napkins, etc. on the floor when done. It seemed like every traditional tapas bar had lots of old men and some old women in there talking feverishly about some topic of the day. Special thanks to Guré and Sally for pointing out Anthony Bourdain's show that was on a couple of weeks earlier, which tipped us to going there. 

Ah, another reason that my phone came in handy. We also ate at Bar Gambara on my birthday. The New York Times wrote about the mushroom selection, so needless to say, we had to go – yes, there is a picture in the albums posted on Facebook and Shutterfly. We also had the opportunity to hit one of Guré and Jim's favorite places (Guré is from Basque Country) in Getaria called Elkano. You'll see a picture with a huge slab of meat in front of Marc and a monster lobster in front of me. Big Yves would be proud how I surgically approached extracting the meat from the lobster.

When we hit Rioja, we ate in the restaurants at the Gehry hotel – Marques de Riscal. The restaurants in the hotel were both OK, but other than the Gehry egg that matched the design of the hotel, the food quality and service were not really commensurate with the price of the meals. We did have a nice lunch at the Wine Museum in Briones, but overall given the quality of all of the other food we had, this was the food low point and it wasn't that terrible. The bar was just set so high from what we had thus far in the trip.

We wrapped up our trip in Paris and had dinner at Chez Christine, Chez Georges and another restaurant that will get the special blog entry. Cousin Claire's friend, Margo, a frequent visitor to Paris, gave us the recommendations and we were not disappointed although I think we really enjoyed the atmosphere of Chez Georges a bit more. The owner's father, Bernard, was in charge tonight because his son was picking up wine in the Champagne region. 

Bernard was charming and I was on a quest this evening for roast chicken. I asked where who made the best in Paris. I didn't care – I was gonna get me some. He replied that the French make roast chicken every Sunday at home as it is the family meal. That is where it tastes the best, so I didn't get some but we had a great chat anyway. Bernard is actually the son of the original Georges, who then owned the restaurant for awhile, and then passed it to his son. Very cool. Tables very tight together. Great food, excellent wine and lively atmosphere. We really enjoyed it. BTW when we got home, I checked my Jacques Pepin and Julia Child cookbook and they both confirmed what Bernard said about roast chicken being a family dish made at home.

The 2 restaurants that will get its own section will be Guy Savoy and Arzak. Both are Michelin-star restaurants and I can tell you that in spite of the price tags both totaling a mortgage payment, they were just awesome. Stay tuned.

Thoughts on the POTUS and VPOTUS campaigns.

OK. As per usual with any post on politics, this post is from Jill and represents Jill’s views and not Marc AND Jill’s views. And if you stick with me through the end of this post, you’ll see my one question for Sarah Palin if I had one.

The tenor of the 2008 Presidential Campaign has been disappointing to say the least on both sides. I am so sick of the campaign spokespeople, who continue spit out vitriol with the enthusiasm of a child opening presents on their birthday. The fact that there are known “spin rooms” after the debate for the press to “mingle” with the campaigns or even the candidates themselves is a joke. How about just reporting on the debate, getting a quote from each candidate, and sending in your story?

The lies have been coming from both campaigns, although I think McCain’s have been more egregious on a couple of topics. He is not the same candidate that he was in 2000, which is a disappointment. My guess is that he decided that he wants to become POTUS so bad that he decided to make a deal with the devil (W.’s lackeys that helped get him elected). The big question is that regardless of if McCain wins or loses, will he have burned all of his bridges from the Democratic side of the house? Regardless of him being a Senator or the POTUS, he is going to have to work with the Democrats to get his agenda done and I now have big questions about that happening (regardless of the huge budget deficit). I wonder if McCain is so fixated on winning if he has even given it any thought? His decision to “suspend” his campaign was such a joke that his poll numbers have actually dropped since he pulled that stunt.

As for my favorite punchline for the past month – Governor Sarah Palin, where should we start? Obviously as a woman who has spent her career working in alpha male-dominated industries, of course I want women to be equally considered for the roles of President or Vice President of the US. But I have never wanted to get a role, promotion, etc., because I am a woman. It wouldn’t mean a thing to me unless I earned it. And that goes for most women I know. BUT the opportunity needs to go to the right woman. I can think of a number of Republican women who could have been asked to serve as the VP candidate on McCain’s ticket that would have been more qualified than Palin – Olympia Snowe, Kay Bailey-Hutchinson, Condolezza Rice, Libby Dole for starters. I don’t agree with their beliefs but at least they have a track record.

The biggest ding to me about Palin is her hypocrisy about providing transparency in Alaska. She has used personal e-mail accounts for government business, hasn’t given a press conference (if she is worried about Maureen Dowd, wait until she meets Vladimir Putin), hasn’t released tax returns (and of course, won’t do it before tonight’s debate), won’t cooperate in the Troopergate investigation and basically insults people who are not from rural areas but expects her ‘hockey mom, moose hunting’ persona to be taken seriously. Sure there are other reasons to think she is an idiot, like her “gotcha journalism” complaints from the Katie Couric interviews. Gee, it was awful of ‘cute Katie’ to ask a follow-up to get a straight answer to a question. GOTCHA!

I know there are people out there who says that being the Governor of Alaska gives her lots of executive experience. That would be true if she actually answered questions from reporters (not just from Hugh Hewitt who should be embarrassed by the softball questions he gave to Palin) about her style of governance and about decisions she made. If she doesn’t answer questions, sorry – the experience doesn’t count in my book. Everyone else has put themselves up for scrutiny. What makes her exempt? She is like regular people? I don’t see that because she gets a per diem because she chose not to move to Juneau, the state capital of Alaska. And she collected the per diem while she stayed at her home in Wasilla. HUH? Most “regular” people I know that get a job in a new location don’t get per diems to stay at their homes.

As for tonight’s debate, I am concerned. The bar has been set so low for Palin that if she manages to use words that have more than 3 syllables, she will be a winner and that is pathetic. Is it so bad to expect a Vice Presidential candidate to care about foreign affairs? That doesn’t make someone a snob. It makes you curious about how the US is perceived around the world and how we can work with other nations to make the world a better place.

So yeah, I am voting Obama/Biden. Palin made me do it. I was one of those disaffected Hillary supporters, who was on the fence until I had the chance to learn about Palin. And McCain has just become a bitter, old man, and I don’t know why. I do know that is not what this country needs at this point in time.

My question for Governor Palin:

Americans need to hear about taking one of your signature success stories that have directly benefitted your constituents, and how you would implement something similar for the entire country. You have touted your rebate to Alaskans based on increased taxes from the oil and gas companies. How would you scale that to the rest of the United States? Will you increase taxes on the oil and gas companies in Texas and the southeast to pay for that rebate?

Thoughts?

The MISC Recent Travel Photos That Marc Likes

You may have read my recent posts regarding our Bordeaux and Basque trip. And you may even be eagerly awaiting Jill's recaps of the glorious food experiences. In the meantime, here are some of the misc photos that sometimes defy categorization or at least their own blog posting. We are starting here with "Wine and Golf Shop" which apparently is what you may see in rural left bank Bordeaux and you will definitely see if you golf at Relais de Margaux.
The next photo is part of the gardens of Château Kirwan.
Then we have the kettle and chefs sign for La Tupina.
The Bourse in Bordeaux and a nice shallow water feature & play area for kids.

Some ivy covering the house of Château La Gaffeliere.
*Very* large format bottles (empty displays really) of Cheval Blanc, Petrus, Mouton Rothschild, and more.
Good 2nd use of wooden wine boxes.
St Francis of Assisi statue at Château Smith Haut Lafitte.
Sundial at Château Smith Haut Lafitte.
Art at the Pompidou Center (quite possibly one of the ugliest buildings ever made) and the Eiffel Tower in the background.
Outdoor 50m pool in Orsay (they also had at least 2 indoor pools at this facility).
Doggie cake cutter not to mention the chocolate cake and cidre!
Sedimentary layers of rock thrust upward many years ago along the Basque coastline.
Just some of the gathering crowds for the boat races in San Sebastián.
The wind comb sculpture in San Sebastián.
Pac Man ghosts on a random wall outside Bilbao Guggenheim museum.
Scottish bagpipes in Bilbao. Interesting scene really.
An outdoor ping pong table in Getaria.
Festival (fiesta?) of the Foam in Samaniego in La Rioja.
A donkey above the church in Samaniego. Part of the weeklong festivities and supposedly (originally) it ate the grass growing on the roof of the structure. Seems like a fitting end to photos that don't fit elsewhere.

San Sebastián

Between Bordeaux and Rioja is the coastal area of Basque Country. Whenever (literally whenever) we mentioned the area of Europe we were going to, every single person asked, "Are you going to San Sebastian?" OK. In addition, our neighbor is Basque so we got some inside tips to begin with. We made sure that was our base of operation for a few days. Nice.

We happened to get there during the Basque Week (week+) of celebration called Euskal Jaiak which may or may not have added to the atmosphere. It seemed like no one slept at night given the time locals show up for dinner (9 to 11 arrivals!), but we made sure that even if we arrived at 8:30 (and were usually in the first 5 groups to be seated), we were never the first to leave the restaurant. Jill will (eventually) talk about all the great food (amazing) so I won't go into that.

There was a regatta in the ocean/bay (Regatas de la Concha) where local towns each have an entry each year in a 20 minute out and back boat race that brings tremendous crowds and bragging rights for the year. We saw some time trials on the day we arrived and it was crowded. It turns out that on our last full day were the semi-finals. We happened to have a hotel room overlooking the bay so we were able to watch it live above the beach AND watch the TV version simultaneously. The crowds were amazing and it was fun seeing all the boats watching this follow in the second heat from our room. The bay was packed with boats.

The town reminded me a little of New Orleans by the party atmosphere particularly in the Old Town area. Fortunately we could walk there in 10 minutes but we were down along the beach. We did have a close nightclub pounding away until 4 or 5 every morning (except Sun night / Mon morning). It made for light sleeping, but the crashing of the waves was very pleasant throughout the nights. This was relaxing and a nice break from winery tours.

No playoffs? On to 2009.

Yep, the New York Yankees season is over for 2008. For the first time since 1995, the Yanks are not going to the playoffs. All great streaks must come to an end, but I bet no one thought it would have been because of the emergence of the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays).

But kudos to the Rays, from the front-office to the players, for going from last to first. The funniest thing was hearing that the Rays didn’t know who was going to throw out the ceremonial 1st pitch for their home playoff games. As Puff Daddy would say, “Jill, that’s a good problem to have”.

Obviously I won’t be cheering for the Red Sox, and I have no emotional connection to either the Angels, ChiSox or Twins (the AL Central is still not settled), so that will leave me cheering for the Rays in the AL. As for the NL, I’ll go with the Cubbies. Everyone else has ended their droughts in baseball, so I think they are due.

As for what I think will happen for the Yanks in the off-season, here goes:

• Brian Cashman stays. Who else wants to deal with the Bronx Zoo, or has the capacity to actually do it?
• Jason Giambi is gone. The Yanks have too many people who bat lefty and have fielding issues. At least Damon has some speed and plays a respectable left field. He could also move to 1st base, if need be.
• Bobby Abreu will be offered arbitration and it will be left at that. They won’t work around the clock to make a deal happen. If Bobby leaves, the draft picks come in anyway. They need to start bringing catchers along – clearly Jorge Posada will not be playing catcher for the duration of his contract.
• Carl Pavano cannot be back. Please!
• Andy Pettite was terrible in August and September. Not sure if he will be back, or if he will try a “Roger Clemens” deal where he comes back in June instead of Spring Training. I think he is going to retire.
• Mike Mussina finally got his 20 win season, which was nice and will hopefully end the stupid HoF talk about if he is worthy. The Yanks will offer a 1-year deal max, but whether that is enough for Moose is something else.
• Robinson Cano will be traded. I think Joe Torre and Larry Bowa would be happy to have him because Bowa knew how to get the best from both him and Melky Cabrera. Cano doesn’t seem to have clicked with Girardi.
• At first I thought CC Sabathia would be a lock for the Yanks. But the Brewers have put an enormous strain on him with pitching on 3 days rest for the past 3 starts. And if they go far in the postseason, you know he is getting the ball any time it is possible. I’m thinking that AJ Burnett moves within the AL East from the Blue Jays to the Yankees.
• Ben Sheets will not be coming to NYY. Neither will K-Rod or Derek Lowe. Now Brian Fuentes as a bridge to Mariano Rivera? That’s a possibility.

With that…. Go Rays! Go Cubs!

Dinastía Vivanco Museo in La Rioja

While in La Rioja, we visited Dinastía Vivanco Museo de la Cultura del Vino (Museum of Wine Culture) in Briones. This museum was very well done and was created by the foundation of the winery/bodega. You may have to go to their home page and select your language (British flag is English). If you are ever in Rioja and you are remotely interested in wine, this place does a fantastic job of showing you the entire process. We highly recommend it. They start with a short film in Spanish with no subtitles that we could have done without. But after that, it was awesome.

They separate it into 5 physical spaces on different levels. The first is "Birth, Growth, Maturity" and they show you the start of winemaking thousands of years ago and the evolution of tools & instruments used. They have antique wine presses. This room has some interesting video of what they do to the vineyards throughout the year. It also has a video and audio from inside a fermentation tank with some animations that show & hear what happens in there.

The second area is called "Keeping the Essences" that shows you how people make barrels, corks, bottles, etc with cross sections of French and American oak showing you how French oak is more porous (allowing more air through during barrel fermentation or aging).

The next section is "The Dream" that shows you all the work involved with racking, pumping, filtering, bottling, shipping, etc. There is also an exhibit with some hands on smelling of all kinds of aromas from red and white wines.

Before you enter the 4^th area, they have a door into the barrel room of the winery so you can peak at that. It's a massive room. The 4^th area itself ("Art and Symbol") has tons of art related to wine. My favorite was a painting of an infant Bacchus (aka Dionysus) drinking wine.
The final permanent exhibit area, called "Open, Serve, and Drink", has an amazing collection of corkscrews (over 3000). They also have jugs and decanters and sampling glasses. After this they take you to the tasting room.

Finally, on the outside of the museum, they have almost every single grape varietal in a garden with a map to each and every grape type so you can go look at it. We couldn't find Petite Sirah which was disappointing, but we did manage to find all the others we cared to find including Syrah. Of course, we were there at the best time of year in early Sept as the grapes are definitely hanging at that time.

Winery Tours Part V: Rioja

While we were in Bordeaux and Basque we figured why not dip into Rioja for a bit and see some bodegas. Actually, the part of Rioja we stayed in is also still part of Basque country. We stayed at Marqués de Riscal in El Ciego with the hotel designed by Frank Gehry (Bilbao Guggenheim, Seattle EMP, Dancing House in Prague, the pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park, and much more) so we toured their wine facility first. Hello. Huge! Mind-bogglingly large. They call it the "city of wine".

There seem to be enough stainless steel fermentation tanks to fill a football field or more. The place was impeccably clean and so hard to grasp the size. The barrel rooms are under the fermentation tank rooms and they were massive too. The bottles are stored in the "new" and "old" areas of the winery. The hotel has 3 pillars of support and they go into the new bottle storage area that holds over 3.5 million bottles of wine. Yes, that is correct. 

What we learned about Rioja is that they age the wines for consumers rather than release them and make the consumer age it for 10 years like Bordeaux. The wine is often aged 3-6 years in barrels and again that long in the bottle before it is released. Big wineries like this also keep a lot of older vintages forever. The bottling line area was bigger than some wineries we've seen. The bottles sit naked until ordered and then are cleaned and "dressed" with labels and capsules just before leaving the facility. On the tour we even saw photos of the hotel as it was built along with a scale model of the plans (with an outdoor pool – the real hotel has an indoor pool).

We visited López y Heredia Viña Tondonia which is old school but very large. They have wooden fermentation tanks (other we visited do too but they usually get new ones every 20-30 years) that are over 100 years old. Apparently there is a crust build up inside. They also have a really long bottle cave that was carved for years. All the bottles have cobwebs all over them and there is mold on the walls and the barrels. Supposedly it's the good mold, but I prefer the places that keep things clean. They age all their wines for 5+ years – even the whites – in oak and they are so different from anything you have probably ever tasted. Apparently whites used to be the more prestigious wine and were even taxed higher than reds. So much so that people would open their whites, pour in some red, and pass through customs paying the lower tax. 
 
They think this is why Spanish use the word 'tinto' (tinted) to describe red wine rather than the word red like the rest of the world. Basically this is a family business that uses patience to age all wines and they make ALL of their own barrels. Their tasting room was built by a now famous architect (she wasn't when they hired her – I think this is her) who is so busy she can't finish the other project they hired her for – the underground tasting room. I would highly recommend finding and trying a white due to the novelty of the taste. I wasn't that big a fan of the reds – perhaps because of the lack of cleanliness in the barrels, aging rooms, etc.

We visited the town of Laguardia which was very cool. We visited Bodega El Fabulista which is one of two remaining wineries in the town that do all the vinification and aging within the town walls. The town has hundreds of underground cellars that used to produce wine. That being said, this was the WORST tour we have ever taken – nothing even comes close. The guide seemed to have a bad attitude and was arrogant and haughty. She often didn't understand people's questions and gave little or wrong information to people. 
 
In addition, there was one fluent Spanish couple along that she talked to in Spanish thinking none of us could understand but (yo entiendo un poco) she was totally dissing the rest of the tour for being dumb and asking no questions – yet she was the one with the abrupt & incorrect answers that was encouraging no questions. It was totally insane, but we were also underground and couldn't escape. We saw two of the other couples afterwards in different places and both of them didn't like the tour either. This place also ferments with the stems which is rare (they have to be perfect to be used and even then in moderation) and the young wine was bitter. It was terrible. El Crapola.

Back onto better tours, we visited La Rioja Alta which was another large place. They called the bottle storage location the 'Bottle Dormitory' which I thought was cool – that and the fact there were 2.5 million bottles chilling out in there. Yikes. They make 5 levels of wine with these years (2+2,3+3,4+4,5+5,6+6) (oak+bottle) and they release them when ready to drink although the Gran Reservas (12 years) can obviously be held onto longer if you wish.
 
Our final visit was recommended by the concierge who said it was his favorite winery – Remirez de Ganuza. It's smaller than those above but certainly a decent size operation. The place was immaculately clean (bonus) and Miguel gave us a great tour including giving us a production dvd of the process when we left. Miguel had spent 2 years making this dvd when he could get time with the owner/winemaker and then he ended up being hired on. The dvd shows great details about the process. This is the first winery that we have heard of that uses the following process: they separate the bunches of grapes into 'shoulders' and 'tips' (or 'feet'). The tops of the bunches (shoulders) which get more sun are used for the Gran Reserva and the bottoms (tips) are used for the second wine. This was very interesting. 

In addition, in the olden days of winemaking after the fermentation bins were drained, the winemakers would go home for the night and when they returned more wine was available that was highly concentrated that seeped through overnight. This was called trasnocho. This winery puts a bag into the fermentation bins and fills it with water to force out this liquid and they use it to vinify a wine they call Trasnocho. First of all, the wine we did taste was the best Rioja we tasted on a tour. We didn't try the Trasnocho here and it isn't currently exported, but that night we found it on our menu so we ordered a bottle and it was delicious. What a way to end the journey.

Winery Tours Part IV: Bordeaux Graves Too

Well the special place known as Sauternes is also within Graves. This place makes an incredible dessert white wine that essentially exists only because of the weather conditions there and rot on the grapes that they want called noble rot (botrytis cinerea) rather than rot they don't want call gray rot.
I can't do the process justice if you want to read more, but essentially it boils down to this. There is the largest planted forest in Europe to the south and there is a tributary to the Garonne River called the Ciron that is shaded by this forest thus keeping that tributary water cool. When it merges with the warmer Garonne, it causes a fog to cover the vines in this area in Sept/Oct that burns off by mid-day. This process allows the rot to develop but not become bad rot because the sun is able to come out and dry things out. The grapes shrivel and concentrate the remaining juice. It doesn't work perfectly every year, but when it does, magic happens.
I must give credit to that explanation to Nicole who explained the above as a teacher would explain to a student. She gave a wonderful tour of the vines, the process, and the winery Château d'Arche. This Château is right in the middle of the 3 Premier Cru Supérieur wineries as this map shows (slightly exaggerating topography but very nice touch!) It was great we got this tour first since Nicole is from Baltimore but speaks fluent French (and English!) and really laid out the whole process so well. She also generously poured us 3 different tastings. The following tours were with native French speakers and one was fairly hard to understand but we already had the basics down pat.
Next we went to Château Filhot. The amazing thing about this place was the vast amount of past vintages just sitting there in the bottles. The bottles are just waiting to be ordered and then the labels and capsules will be put on before it is sent out (you can tell what they are by the cork which is labeled).
We had lunch in the town (small town) at Le Saprien. This nice little place had a great view of Château Guiraud and vines. It was a beautiful setting and a great lunch.
Finally, we went to Château Suduiraut which has a great view of Château d'Yquem (the most famous of all Sauternes). This property was absolutely beautiful and great to tour and holds a lot of events/weddings. The gardens were gorgeous and symmetrical. There were vegetable gardens and herb gardens and it was just so serene. Sadly, we had to leave Sauternes as the day was ending and we were headed to San Sebastián the following day.

Winery Tours Part III: Bordeaux Graves

We headed over the Graves, particularly a sub area of the appellation called Pessac-Léognan. The first place we visited was absolutely immaculate called Château Haut Bailly. A very pristine and beautiful property on the top of one of the hills that always gets a breeze or wind. The owner from Buffalo, New York occasionally stays there and you can tell is investing heavily for improvements.

The other place we visited here was Château Smith-Haut Lafitte.
We stayed adjacent to this on the vineyard property at Les Sources de Caudalie which Jill will probably write about. This was the first place we visited that has a full time barrel maker. They make most but not all of their own barrels. They have multiple barrel rooms and one of them is 107 meters long – just enormous. This place was gorgeous.
We also visited Sauternes in the Graves appellation. That is such a special place that it'll get its own post sometime soon.

Winery Tours Part II: Bordeaux Right Bank

We spent a day on bikes on the hills around and in St. Emilion. Our first stop was Château La Gaffelière just south of the little town. It's been a rough 2008 for all of Bordeaux to this point with Spring freezes and lots of rain during the summer. Everyone is counting on a good, dry September to ripen the fruit. Eric showed us a few leaves with fungus. Their barrel room is under an obelisk monument in their vineyards.
The wine tasting is done at an establishment (La Cadène) in town which is smart because you can buy from there whereas you cannot really buy from a Château. Eric took is motorbike into town while we biked and huffed up the hill. We tasted 8+ wines and bought some wine.
After lunch, we biked to Château Franc Mayne and had a nice tour. Stacy showed us the cool underground caves and a cutout of the terroir showing the clay on limestone and what the vine roots have to do to get water. During the wine tasting, Jill gave tips about eonline to keep up on the television gossip since they are behind on the shows. It takes a while to translate into French.
We biked the back way up to Château Beau-Séjour Bécot. Here Marie gave us a long tour of massive underground cave structures. They used to link all the way to the town itself but have been blocked off since they store wine down there and people could too easily sneak in the "back way". They have 60,000 bottles stored under the property although it apparently used to be 600,000. There are human skulls in there AND the caves abut a cemetery so the tour guide wouldn't go down here at night for fear of ghosts.
The next day we drove to Château de Sales in Pomerol (home of Petrus, which has its own special soil at the highest point of the appellation). This tour was special because the owner himself showed us around and poured generously from the bottle at the end – the 3 of us almost finished a bottle. His philosophy differs from a lot of the other winemakers in that he wants smooth wines that you can drink now instead of waiting a decade or more. He probably has the most drinkable young wines in the area yet there have been times they've opened 30-50 year old bottles and they are still showing well. They only use about 20% new barrels and even buy used barrels from other places (first place we've been to that does that). I would describe the entire place as frugal but we had a great time here. As we left, he invited us back anytime.
Our last stop in the area was Château Figeac and it was cool. The 91 year old owner actually came out and met the tour for a couple of minutes. He looked fantastic and drinks wine every day. This owner was ahead of his time by bottling every varietal 100% on their own 6 decades ago and then waited 10 years to see how they aged.
This helped him decide which grapes work best here and he is focused on quality that is affordable. The owner wants tours to drink something that isn't too young so they hold onto a lot of bottles for this purpose. We had a 1988 tasting. Someone showed up late for the tour which we think prevented us from tasting another vintage – possibly 1998 or 1978? We'll never know.

Winery Tours Part I: Bordeaux Left Bank

We made a trip to Bordeaux and Rioja recently and visited several Châteaus and Bodegas. 75-85% of the tours are the same but that remaining amount that differs never fails to further enlighten us about the winemaking process. I've broken these posts down by regions.

The left bank, known as the Médoc, is relatively flat with lots of gravel to retain heat. We took a tour of Château Kirwan. The tour guide was fairly incredible as he gave the tour in French, Spanish, and English which was a remarkable feat. It made for a long tour as he repeated most of what he said in French two more times (the French got more info than the rest of us). The founder was Irish and happened to get a great property (luck of the Irish) and he did something crazy by having a huge garden on the estate rather than planting more vines.

We also visited Château Giscours which is just a massive property. They have a huge polo field - I thought it could be a driving range :-). The tasting room is in what used to be the stables (it's very clean). They rent a mobile bottling line for about 3 months every year to bottle the wine and we saw one of these mobile bottling lines over near St. Emilion later in the trip. We tasted a heavy rosé but it's generally not exported. The red wine was very good. They have updated the outside of the main building, but the Dutch owner has another beautiful Château only a few miles away so he uses that as his vacation home.
Finally, we visited Château Pontet-Canet which is next door to Mouton-Rothschild. The Pontet-Canet property is beautiful and we got a tour on a golf cart. The place was very clean and they use biodynamic farming methods and a gravity fed system of filling the fermentation vats after the sorting. They are a rare left bank estate that has an underground cellar. At one point we were talking to Gwen, our tour guide, about Burgundy and Oregon and Jill asked: "Do you drink Pinot?" Gwen said: "that is an aperitif to us!"

Oh, Jamón

So on our recent trip I (Marc) was able to consume true cured Spanish Ham. I probably had at least 10 jamón plates, but only managed to capture 5 of them on camera. They all rocked! And they were all different. Many times, the starters were all seafood except the ham anyway so it's a good thing that's what I wanted. Salivate over the collage.

We Have Bottled Wine!

We finally bottled our first vintage of wine (2006 Petite Sirah from Mendocino California) and we have blogged about the experience at Purple Teeth Cellars. If you want to be notified of when the wine will be available to purchase, sign up for our mailing list and we will let you know. 

Thank you for your support!

If you are more into Syrah, we are already halfway to bottling two 2007 syrahs that we think will be outstanding.