Fairview Pinotage 2006 – South Africa

Gerd and I got hooked on Pinotage while out in San Diego the end of last year. So we’ve been picking up bottles here and there when we can find them. I’m not a wine connoisseur, so you’ll just have to bear with my description from a layman’s perspective.

This Pinotage is a deep red with a smoky flavor with a bit of spice – you’ll know what I’m talking about after the first sip. It’s very full-bodied, but not very dry at all (which I’ve found is pretty rare). Don’t get me wrong, it’s not sweet, but it’s kind of a fat big flavorful red. I thought, this would be perfect with some serious steak, and then I looked at the back of the bottle and it said it’s great with curries and braised or barbecued red meats. It also says it would go well with a rich cheese, which I would agree with. But seeing how I only have Kraft Singles in the fridge, I thought better of it. Though I wonder if I could pair some sort of wine with Easy Cheese… now THAT’s got me thinking…

Top 5 things about Fairview Pinotage
1. Big fat wine without being dry enough to suck the moisture out of my mouth and make me thirstier
2. Sounds fancy when you recommend a wine from South Africa to your friends
3. A couple glasses of wine makes for top-notch quality on my take-home final
4. I’m glad I didn’t bring this to someone’s house and only get one glass
5. Makes me look forward to my other reds since I know I have considerable red meat in my freezer

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd was looking forward to drinking this with me
2. I didn’t eat this with a juicy steak
3. Had to drink it alone
4. I’ll be re-writing my take-home final tomorrow night
5. Now I’ll have to go buy more (after I drink a couple other bottles)

www.fairview.co.za

Vacation - Day 3 – San Diego, CA

We woke up early so we could play some disc golf in the morning before the course got busy. Morley Field is something of a legend in the disc golf world, mostly because it’s been around for a really long time. Gerd got to play with Annie Kremmel, two-time woman’s Masters WORLD Champion disc golfer for the first part of the round. Annie was hilarious and made the funniest comments to her doubles partner who was playing with us. However, I was unimpressed with the course. It had some decent elevation changes, but I never ever felt completely safe anywhere on the course due to the criss-crossing fairways.

There were tons and tons of people out practicing the course for the tournament the following day (which we didn’t know anything about). It must have been a pretty large tournament since I saw like 5 TOP pro players out there I recognized. Val and Avery, Burl, and a couple of other who looked familiar (those of you who golf know who I’m talking about). I think it was their yearly team tournament they have out there for top players who qualify. I played about average for my current game, so I can’t complain. A couple of good shots, a couple of stupid shots, but mostly average shots.

We left the course, came home and showered, and then headed to El Indio for some awesome Mexican food. Gerd had done considerable food research before we left Minnesota, and this restaurant kept rising to the surface. You order at the counter and get a buzzer and go find your table. We got some chips which were fried (of course), but also had some sort of magic dust on them which was awesome. It almost seemed like a enchilada red sauce, but in powder form.

I got the Mortiditas, which are taquitos cut up for you and then layered with cheese. Unfortunately, it was pump nacho cheese, not real shredded cheese, but it was still good. I also got a carne asada burrito and a chicken taco. Gerd had a couple of carne asada enchiladas. Truly, this place was worth going to. It makes us want to spit on Minnesota Mexican food (figuratively, not literally).

We then headed to the lighthouse on the small strip of land between the bay and the ocean. It was beautiful out (a tad windy though). We checked out the light house and then went down to the cliff edge and walked near the tidepools. It was high tide, so we couldn’t see much in the way of ocean creatures, but it was still awesome.

While we were there, a group of people came to the edge of the rocks and I wasn’t paying attention to them. I looked over at them because my friend had a weird expression on her face when she saw them. I looked over at them just in time to see one of them dumping a REALLY large bag of ashes into the water – or more correctly, watch the ashes catch the breeze and go straight into my eyes!!! Gerd didn’t see any of it until we were walking back up the rocks and my eyes were watering. She thought I meant cigarette ashes in my eyes, but I told her, “No. It was pure Columbian Grandma in my eyes.” We were all cracking up at my inappropriateness. And my friend said, “I think it was more than just grandma – might have been a few cousins in that bag. My dad’s ashes were way smaller than that bag.” Again, we’re all going to hell.

We finished the night at a party thrown by my friend. She invited a ton of people including hanging flyers on every door in her apartment building. We had a blast. We went through 12 bottles of wine. Gerd fell asleep on the couch, but I stuck it out through the whole night, including through many hours of Jerry Garcia on the DVD player. Sigh… On a good note, I now have a ton of new wine I need to buy for our house!

Top 5 things
1. El Indio
2. Lighthouse point and tidepools
3. Pinotage and Malbec wines
4. Party in my honor
5. Got to play with nationally ranked disc golfers (and didn’t embarrass myself)

Bottom 5 things
1. Jerry Garcia
2. Grandma’s ashes in my eye
3. Morley Field
4. Gerd crashed early, like a pansy
5. Explaining to people that there are famous disc golfers

http://www.el-indio.com

Vacation - Day 2 - San Diego, CA

Got up early (like 9am) (actually 11am Central Time) and hit the shower. Gerd had some issues actually turning on the shower. I admit when I went to help, I couldn’t figure it out either. I had to ask for help. Apparently, I wasn’t pulling on it hard enough (TWSS). I had nightmares of pulling the handle off the shower wall and spending the remainder of the day bailing water. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and we got clean in due time.

We wanted to check out the beach, so we took the dog to the dog beach. Apparently, dogs aren’t allowed on most beaches, so there’s a designated one. It ruled. There were tons of dog splaying fetch and playing in the ocean and sniffing each others’ butts and digging in the sand. Super awesome environment if you’ve got a dog in San Diego.

Our friend wanted to show us the sunset cliffs which we were glad we saw. Sheer cliffs with multi-million dollar houses on the other side of the street. It was really a classy place. The cliffs were super cool and because it was high tide, there were places completely covered in water which usually aren’t and there were surfers all over the place hopping off the cliffs into the water to go out and find waves. Really cool.

Then the dog fell asleep with his head against the back seat. This guy can fall asleep anywhere - as demonstrated here:

We headed back home after a tour of the neighborhoods. Really quaint area and really classy in most spots. We got home, got a tour of the apartment pool, garage, and Jacuzzi, grabbed a change of clothes and headed to the zoo – after we found lunch.

We stopped by a Der Weinerschnitzel. We used to have one back in Illinois where I’m from and a lot of my friends still talk about it regularly. It’s basically a hot dog/corn dog/chili-cheese-fry joint, but it always had awesome and weird combinations. I ended up with a pastrami cheese dog and chili-cheese fries, and Gerd got a corn dog, a bacon-cheese dog, and a root beer float. Great food, and the photos I sent back to my friends angered them sufficiently.

We hit the zoo and had a blast of a day. I won’t even get into some of the awesome animals we saw, bu we saw everything. All of the zoo staff were friendly and patient and helpful. We saw some animals we were familiar with (pandas, tigers, giraffes, monkeys) and some that we are now fans of (Fossas, Dik Diks, and Okapis). Cool tour bus ride around the park, cool animal shows, and habitats made for the perfect day. Gerd had some of the most hilarious lines. I’ll put one of the cleaner ones (and even that one isn’t that clean): Something about not being able to lactate Rum (although that would make for an awesome pirate adult film).



We headed home to meet the friends and to grab some dinner. They met us at the door with glasses of wine, which is how every trip away from someone’s house should result. They recommended a fantastic wine bar which sounded great to us. We walked what they assured me was within walking distance, but ended up being multiple miles. And they walk REALLY fast. After a hard day of walking at the zoo, we were moving much slower. They would stop and let us catch up occasionally, but since we had multiple miles to walk, we had plenty of chances to do so.

The wine bar was awesome. 3rd Street Corner is a great place to both grab some food and some great wine. They let me pick out a bottle from the cellar and I got great kudos for picking out a nice white wine from Santa Barbara. Not too sweet and not to dry. Everyone seemed pleased. We got some olives and a really nice fancy artisan cheese plate. Gerd got a nice Mahi Mahi and I got a roasted chicken pasta. Gerd’s Mahi tasted great and was on a bed of awesome vegetables. Gerd was torn between that and the NY Strip, but being this close to the coast, she went with the better option. Well played, lady. The chicken pasta was really good – not the best I’ve had, but really good nonetheless. And yes, thanks for asking, it DID have bacon in it! I would get it again. Actually, I’d get something different and go back to the chicken pasta eventually. We finished with some dessert and cognac, which was a great finish to dinner.

We headed home to drink another bottle or two of wine and watched some tv before hitting the sack. Now THAT was a vacation day to remember. Perfect day.

Top 5 things about vacation day 2
1. Fassos
2. Lots of wine
3. Dog beach
4. Sunset Cliffs
5. Der Weinerschnitzel (aka angering friends)

Bottom 5 things
1. Wish I was rich enough to own a home on Sunset Cliffs
2. Miles of walking after miles of walking
3. We totally shut down the zoo – last ones there. Bummer.
4. Only got to see the panda for like 60 seconds
5. Shower handle issue

Vacation - Day 1 - San Diego, CA

Gerd and I needed a break, so we put together a trip to the Southwest. I’ve got friends in San Diego and family in Arizona, so we thought we’d see each and have a relaxing time. We headed out of Minneapolis on the 3rd after work. It was a really hot flight down to Phoenix – like people were complaining about how hot it was on the flight. It was bad. We survived but only barely ha ha. No problems on the flight aside from the temp and no problems on the flight from Phoenix to San Diego.

Well, mostly. When we showed up at the gate, there weren't any airport staff to meet us at the SD airport. The pilots got on the PA and said we’re here on time, but no one is here. Literally, we waited like 10 minutes for someone to show up on the skyway. It took three people to figure out how to move the thing. Apparently they were all new or “it wasn’t their job.” In fact, when they did, they didn’t know how to stop it once started and it rammed the side of the plane. Classic.

We hopped on the rental car shuttle. As Gerd is getting on the shuttle, the driver yells at her, "Break it down! Break it down! Break it down!" I turned around to see if she was egging on some of Gerd's famous dance moves, but apparently, Gerd was getting the riot act for not putting her handle on her rolling luggage down before getting on the shuttle. Chill out lady shuttle driver!

We grabbed a rental car from Thirty and they didn’t have a compact (the cheapest) available that we could drop off in Phoenix on the 10th. So we ended up with a Jeep Commander for the week. Awesome!!! It took us a while at the rental place due to some computer glitches and then issues with me trying to find the window button and then the door handle when we went to check out. But it was dark, right?

We used the GPS feature on my new Blackberry Storm to find our friends house. I hadn’t met my friend’s new husband, but we missed their wedding in August, so this was part of why we planned the trip in the first place – guilt. We made it to the house and met the new husband. Great guy. I would have liked him no matter what since he married my friend, but I actually really like the guy. We talked and got caught up and played with the dog – in general a fantastic start to the vacation.

We stayed up way too late talking and drinking wine, but it was a good thing, since I’m a bad sleeper anyway. We had a full day planned for Thursday, so we needed our beauty sleep.

Top 5 things about vacation day 1
1. No work!
2. Jeep Commander at a compact car price
3. GPS finding our way for us
4. Wine at the end of vacation day 1
5. My friends RULE!

Bottom 5 things
1. Super hot flight
2. Long delay at rental car place
3. My ineptitude of opening windows or doors of vehicles
4. Airport workers ineptitude at driving a skyway
5. Time changes make us sleepy at odd times