DISQUS

I simply cannot abide any method other than frying on the stove in a good heavy pan. I love how the bacon curls up and creates chewy and crispy parts within the same strip - especially the chewy translucent white ends that are farther from the heat. Nothing better!

Gotta have a team name, something like the Gutter Guzzlers or Blogging Bombers or something...

The fiend you are looking for owns Ginsu knives and purchases magazines. That should narrow it down quite a bit!

The humanity, I mean, chickanity...

oh - I hope that route 12 didn't end up taking you longer - that wasn't the intent! Was great to see both of you and I'm happy you had so much fun every day in California!

Wow. If I caught any of my pourers behaving like that, they would experience the full force of my size 13s! I suspect that these may have been volunteers, but the volunteers should have been better supervised...

Yes, Virginia, there is a Winehiker! Probably could add #16: You have time to make lists... this too shall pass. take care.

At Twisted Oak we'll be happy to provide shipping containers, and we're licensed to ship to TX if you want us to send anything (that's something we do for everyone!)

The other trick is to get good 12 bottle shipping containers and check them as your baggage. Your clothes you ship home via UPS - dirty laundry is not regulated by the 21st amendment and you can ship it to any state!

Glad you liked the wine. This wine was from our very first vintage as a winery. I can still remember tasting it right after we first got it into barrels - I wanted to bottle it right away it was so good!

Sorry about the snub - please believe me when I say we do not snub a rubber chicken with a light heart. No sir!

(BTW that's my favorite Mitch Hedberg line ;)

Very very good points! I find it curious that loss of control of "brand voice" is a concern, because I see that my social activity is an integral part of my brand voice.

Also, I wish I had seen this post sooner because we just completed a "wine for breakfast" blogging event on our winery blog. Hope you have a moment to check it out!

If you're looking for wilderness, there's plenty just east of SF in Calaveras County, on up Hwy 4 thru Alpine County as well for some genuine designated wilderness areas Mokelumne and Carson-Iceberg). Or you can pull off at Calaveras Big Trees State Park and enjoy some... really big trees!

The last time I ate at Tapas the World it was excellent. Also, I recently ate at Lucca's which is also near downtown and has excellent tapas: 1615 J Street Sacramento 1.916.669.5300 (between 16th and 17th Streets)

I think less like TV ads and more like print ads - TV ads interrupt the thing want to look at, print ads sit at the periphery....

I like #3 because I also grow Tempranillo, Graciano, and Garnacha in red iron-rich soil. But I also like #5 because I have friends who have walked the Camino de Santiago, and it sounds like an amazing thing to do.

I have always wondered about where "La Rioja" came from. Thanks for an excellent post!!!

hi Joel - I was really excited when I saw you had a chicklet gallery (I was expecting small chickens ;) but this is still pretty cool! Two things:

1. How do use these via the Feedflare "Toast"? Or am I missing something?

2. I like the look of the mid sized graphic, but at least on my display I can barely see the number. It has no contrast against the red glass behind it. Maybe a different color than white? I also found the fact that the number was an active link confusing at first - seems to me you just want the Toast! to be active...?

thanks! - j

So, those must have been some pretty yucky Spanish wines we were drinking years ago when we became inspired to produce our Twisted Oak Spanish varietals. Who knew?

Arrrrrr! Where he be?

Let's see... if he's been off for a month and in love and unable to communicate, then it's safe to say he'll winehiking kinda funny, so that not very plausible.

On the other hand, if he's been in jail, there's a pretty good chance he was someone's love interest. I hear that happens.

A vacation would be nuts during the busy winehiking summer. And I don't know how well the Winehiker sings - if he sings like I do I don't want to know...

It's not #3, because this was clearly typed by someone with two hands.

If it's #1 I want to check into that hospital...

That leaves #2.

Nice article! When I saw "Orange Bucket" in the title I was worried for a moment... Suggestion: 30 minutes in that freezer will chill down wine very nicely. Not as romantic as the bucket, but dependable! :)

very nice photos! oak is such an integral part of the winemaking process from harvest to bottle, that there is something "right" about finishing a bottle of wine with a piece of oak to seal it.

Gabriella's experience highlights the folly of a Flash-based site for a business. Not only does it stink for search engines that can't see your content, but then you get the fun of "mystery meat" by having to mouse over to see contact info - and if I want to copy and paste that info, I'm hosed...

So, Pownce is kind of like micro-mini-podcasting - interesting! How about a 30 second video?

me three - firefox 2.0.0.4 on WinXP - it asks me my state, I enter CA, and it asks me again - I'm stuck in an endless loop...

hey Ryan - I have now played with both a little bit, and I am really not liking jaiku very much - I have links embedded in the message that just go to the message - and it doesn't show me my entries in context with the other ones.

If I have to like either of them, at least twitter shows me everything on one page. I'm still not sold on whether twitter is even worth the trouble. For me right now, it acts more like an extended chat room than anything else...

thanks! - j

I clearly must check in more often...

Points are boring but
Dancing tasting notes might be
Left to Web Three Oh!

Nice video! Gabriella is very charming, and even Ryan has his moments :)

As someone who spent a lot of time in the tech world before making the big leap to the wine world, I simply cannot agree with you more. I was one of those engineers that actually understood product engineers and sought them out.... In fact, you may receive very few comments to your post simply because you made the point so well...

In Wine 2.0 land, I have gotten to the point where I am performing a form of triage: If your site, service, whatever is not immediately easy to use and meets my needs as a winery, I'm outta there. I popped over to one of the new darlings recently and checked out after five minutes - do they really expect me to spend several hours loading up their database for them? What is my return on that (considerable) investment?

hi Ryan - I am a lot less active than I have had time for lately, but I'll be back on track soon, I hope!

You have hit the nail on the head: a "crafted response" is exactly the wrong response. What is called for today is an honest response, an open response - like "hey, thanks for trying..."

And if you are part of the conversation, you also run the risk of learning something...:)

"...if you live in California, you may want to write about Pinot Noir..." - that's kinda funny :)

Seriously - if Catalunya is writing about Priorat, then New Spain, er, California can break it down a little too. The interesting challenge might be to taste and share a wine that was the one made closest to where you live, as the proverbial crow flies.

But no matter what - I intend to be consuming something especially good on June 1, because my son graduates high school that day!