gonna party like it's my birfday. it's my birfday!

It's my birthday.  That pulls together a bunch of different threads for me.  On the one hand, it is a day like any other day.  'nough said...  but it is good to set time aside to be aware of the passage of time, of people and places and experiences that are important to us and to celebrate and commemorate.  It doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate.  It just needs to be.

So we're celebrating.  And it won't be expensive or elaborate.  We blew way more money than we could afford on our recent trip to Kauai so it can't be either.  I'll be thankful for family and friends, for technology that kept me alive way beyond most of the men in my family, and for blessings too numerous to even remember let alone list.

Cheryl and I started last night by stopping by a wine bar in Lompoc called D'vine.  It was our first time there.  We'll be sure to go back.  We had some nice local wine and heard some great music by Owen Plant (who we have coming back to the Cambridge Drive Concert Series in January).  We weren't planning to eat anything but they had this desert that wouldn't let us not try it.  It was a dark chocolate chili tart with candied apple smoked bacon.  It was soooo good and was just perfect with red wine.

Today... I'm beginning by trying to put off finishing my sermon.  It is not an easy passage (Matthew 21:33-46) and I've never preached on it before so I can't even cheat and pull out an old sermon.  So, I blog first and then I'll get back to it.

For dinner, like many folk, the birthday person gets to pick either a favorite restaurant or a favorite meal.  Cheryl is an amazing cook.  She can do sophisticated and fancy and she can also do peasant food.  I like both.  We can get sophisticated pretty easily in Santa Barbara and some kinds of peasant food, especially Mexican, but other peasant foods are just not available.  Good pizza is very difficult to get on the west coast period and the people's Italian food is almost as difficult to find.  Back in Philly and Pittsburgh, every few blocks there was a knock you off the bar stool neighborhood Italian restaurant.  Here... there just aren't.  Cheryl makes a red sauce, called gravy in Philly, that is as good as any I've ever had anywhere  and a killer meatball.  So that is what I requested.  We'll have a nice super Tuscan, the Tocata Riserva from Mandolina and some store bought deserts.  Cheryl also makes some amazing deserts but if she made an entire flour less chocolate torte I'd eat it.  So we bought deserts from a local bakery.  They won't be as good as hers, but I'll be finished with it this evening and won't have all of those evil calories calling me.

Now... back to the sermon.  Thanks for the diversion.

tastes great!

I've said before that one of the real joys of living in Santa Barbara is the availability of wonderful, local wines. On Friday we're going to a friend's house to do a tasting of Cabernet's at a variety of price points and I decided to go across the mountains yesterday to pick up a bottle from our favorite winery - Beckmen. Since we're members there, that means a free tasting. So, Cheryl and I along with Alexis and her significant other, Christian, drove to Los Olivos, got lunch at a little cafe and then off to Beckmen's to taste some wonderful red wines. We bought the cab and a bottle of their top of the line blend, jumped in the car and off for some more tastings.

Tastings are a wonderful social event... the pourers are all wonderfully social and informed people and it is great fun to taste some wines, learn about them, and meet some fun people. It is also interesting to feel the different atmospheres of the different wineries and to see the different clientele that is attracted. It was a gray and drizzly day but what better way to spend that than tasting some great wines and laughing with fun people?

We didn't feel like driving around a lot so we went to Solvang where we could visit a number of tasting rooms that we hadn't visited before, walk around a bit, and then head home.

Our first visit was Mandolina. One of the trends here is known as CalItal - growing Italian grapes and making Italian style wines and this little winery is one of the ones devoted to that trend. We tasted some very nice Italian varietals and ended up purchasing a bottle of their version of a super Tuscan - a blend of Italian and Bordeaux varieties of grapes. Yummy. It was a small tasting room and we were the only ones there for most of the time. We enjoyed talking with the pourer.

A short walk around the corner brought us to our next stop - Stolpman Vineyards. Stolpman is known more as a grower than a vintner and it isn't unusual to see other wineries with bottles labeled that the grapes came from Stolpman. I had drunk other vintners wines made from Stolpman grapes, but hadn't tasted their own wines before. When we got to the reds, we were struck by the huge tannins in their wines. I'm told that the vast majority of wines sold in the US are drunk within 3 days and most US wines are produced with that in mind. It would be a shame to drink these wines in 3 days. These puppies need to sit for a few years... and then they'll be amazing. The tasting room was a little larger than Mandolina and David, the pourer, obviously knew their wines. There were a few other people there. This winery is tempting me to join another wine club... but Cheryl says it is more than she wants to commit to spending on wines... I'll be working on her.

Around the corner and down the street and we stopped at Lucas and Lewellen, who also own Mandolina. I have wanted to taste their wines for some time as I pass some of their vineyards on 101 everytime I drive to Santa Maria for my clergy group meetings. This tasting room was full. Beth, the pourer, was a lot of fun. She obviously enjoys her job and the clientele enjoyed her. She described one wine to me as being so wonderful that one drink and the heavens opened and the angels sang... but that wine was sold out. Her second favorite, she told us was almost as good... the heavens still opened and the angels were there but no Baptist choir. You can imagine the look on her face when I told her that I am a Baptist pastor. We bought a bottle of Petit Syrah (her 2nd favorite).

I hate to sound like I represent the chamber of commerce or the visitor's bureau, but if you find yourself anywhere near the California central coast, do plan to do some tastings... and maybe encourage your favorite restaurant or local wine merchant to add some Santa Barbara wines to their wine list.