Turn the steering wheel.

I'll be finishing my last two shifts behind the bar at the winery in the next couple of weeks, and it's causing me to reflect on my experiences as a tasting room attendant. 

The best (and coincidentally, also worst) part of my job has been the people -- the best, my coworkers, all of whom I enjoy and most of whom I'm friends with outside of work. And the great customers I meet -- people I'd love to invite over for dinner or to my home for the weekend. Honestly, I've met people I'd be honored to call my honorary relatives. Pouring wine allows you to interact with cultured, funny, intelligent and wonderful people who all have one thing in common: they love wine. I've met NASA astrophysicists, POTUS advisors, current and ex-movie stars, you name it. But also just retired couples, newlyweds, "just-turned-21" youngsters (to me) who are anxious to really learn about how to taste wine, and oenophiles of every social class and occupation.

But in my time behind the bar I've also met people who I was less than thrilled to meet, but who I had to smile and serve wine to, nonetheless:  There was The Russian, a repeat customer who constantly asked for re-visits on the wine, complained about the portions he was poured, claimed he was owed discounts and freebies no one promised him, and who treated service staff like serfs. There were the parents who brought their children with them when they went to winery after winery and didn't look after them. There were drunks who broke things, caused scenes, tried to crash weddings going on on-site, or attempted public sex in some pretty public places. 

But thankfully, those bad experiences were very, very much in the minority and were mostly things we could all laugh about once the doors closed and it was just staff and a half-finished bottle of Cabernet going around as we swapped tales of the day.

One of the things about providing great service though is to always ensure your smile is genuine; in other words you should never burn out, and after three years and increasingly busy customer counts, it's time for me to hand over the bottle to someone else before I do, in fact, burn out. It would happen. I've always believed it was a smart person in life who knew when to change lanes or get off the damn freeway completely when it was time to do so, and who turned the steering wheel without fear. Before someone asks you to, or you are desperate to change. Make the change before you hit that point, if you can, I say.

My new office.

My new job has several distinct advantages: I can set my own hours, including during summer when I'll try and be home before the heat sets in. I can take breaks when needed, or just stop and visit with a coworker without fear of neglecting a customer awaiting their next pour of wine. I still get to work in a happy work place with happy coworkers. And I'm outdoors on the best days -- the cool, sunny, breezy ones, and at home with a good book when it rains or when it's 105 degrees.

My shifts will also be a bit shorter, but more often, which will allow me to dovetail my own homesteading activities with work a lot more, which will help around here a lot.

But of course there will be the challenge of growing a beautiful and also a productive garden, meeting the needs of our kitchen staff and chef while also making the garden a place that beckons you to walk around and visit. 

At this point, I'm just turning the wheel and hoping for the best.

A New Chapter

So yesterday afternoon I found myself among friends at the winery on a purely social visit, sitting beneath the veranda as the sun set with a glass of Cabernet and catching up with everyone. One friend is going through a difficult divorce and was passing her phone around so we could see pictures the new house she just purchased, which she'll be working on to make totally hers, reflecting her new life.

I will be starting a new life of my own soon, in a wonderful way. I will be moving on from the tasting room in order to manage our Chef's Garden at the winery. Oh, I'll still probably jump in behind the bar on special occasions like festival weekends, but my energy and work hours will now be focused on making our winery garden both productive and a lovely place to look at as customers enjoy our wine and stroll the property.

There comes a time when everyone needs a bit of a change-up; in the three years I've worked at the winery it's been "discovered,"  we've have won numerous (well-deserved) awards, and the restaurant has also recieved numerous write-ups and high praise (also well-deserved). These are all great things to be sure, but the result is that my workplace has become twice as busy as when I started, and unfortunately I'm not half as young to go along with that. 

While everyone has been pleased as punch with my job performance as a tasting room attendant, I knew that I would not last through another hot summer (most our our work takes place outside in summer, in the heat of the afternoons) out pouring wine, schlepping plates and helping serve food, and I had all but determined that my last day would be the end of June, regardless of whether or not I had another job to go to.

But that made me very sad, as I love my bosses, coworkers and customers, I count good friends among them all and it would have broken my heart to leave.

But providence threw down a blessing this week in the form of this job offer, and so beginning in April I will be out in the garden at the winery in the cool mornings, making it a place you want to be -- to stand in, to walk around, and of course enjoy the products of in your lunchtime meal.

So here's to moving out -- out into a new life, and in my case, out into the garden, a place I seem destined to inhabit in one form or another. And now there will be double posts on growing and wine country life,  both from home and work. I really think I'm going to enjoy this new view from my "office," just a few yards from the tasting room, but where the breezes blow and the seedlings grow.

Can you tell I can't wait to get started?

A little slice of heaven (photo heavy)

Creston, California -- a little slice of heaven just down the road.

I got to spend yesterday with a good friend/coworker, traveling the back roads of our county for a special Industry Afternoon, hosted by several wineries of the "Creston Wine Trail."  The Creston Wine Trail is a relatively little-known area around the funky, cute town of Creston, a locavore's heaven if ever there was one. It's probably what Paso Robles was like 25 years ago -- small, intimate, with uncrowded tasting rooms and fantastic wines and locally grown and raised food.  

If I was recommending this area to someone who wanted to "get away from it all," I would recommend the Creston area. It really does feel like a little slice of heaven as you are driving through the gently rolling hillsides and green fields.

August Ridge Vineyards

One of the greatest parts of my job is that doing things like this is such an important part of it.  In a tasting room your main job is as wine educator; informing people not only about the wines you are pouring, but about wines and the region in general. It's always nice to spend a day like this in the company of knowledgable and competent peers, because I always learn so much about our region and wines it is capable of producing.  There's also always a lot of shop talk about number of punch-downs and pump-overs, specific yeasts and their benefits, as well as talk about where the industry is headed.

Unofficial mascot at Shadow Run Vineyards and Winery

We stopped at several wineries as part of the tour, as well as an olive-oil producing tasting room which also featured locally grown-and-harvested lamb for sale. I am not a lamb person, but my friend David was, and so he talked meat with the operations manager while I sampled some of the incredible flavored olive oils, vinegars, and other products.

Another huge perk to working in the wine business is that we generally receive anywhere from a 30 to a 50 percent discount on any bottles purchased at other wineries when we visit.  And tasting is always free. This allows us to sample other wineries' fare and then make good recommendations to our customers, depending on what they are looking for. I know that just from my afternoon spent on the Creston Wine Trail that it is something I can now wholeheartedly recommend not only to customers, but also to friends and family who visit and want to get off the beaten path of the most popular 20 or so wineries that everyone seems to visit when they come to Paso.

My two favorite wines from Chateau Margene -- Pistolero Chardonnay and Mooney 2012 Pinot Noir.

Not only were these wines great, but you also got the chance, at each venue, to sit and chat with the owner (who is usually also the winemaker) and get to know the character of both the wine and its maker at the same time.  It means that by the time you leave, you feel more like a neighbor or friend than just a customer, which I think is an important (and unfortunately, rapidly disappearing) part of any wine country experience.

Mmm. Delicious salad and marinating possibilities!

I came home full of great food and with a bag of new wine purchases, as well as olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which means not only will I be making some great food, but now have even more options on what I can serve it with. Yes, for us it was just another day at work, but sometimes here in wine country a day at work can also be a little slice of heaven.

Watermelon and other stuff

Here's a great recipe for a summer night....a nice, ripe watermelon, balled or cubed, and splashed with  1/4 cup of good, white balsamic vinegar and mixed well.  That's it.  

A lot of people will add some fresh spinach, mint and basil with feta cheese to make a meal, but to me just the watermelon and vinegar is fine on its own. You don't need the oven, you don't need the stovetop, just the ingredients and a place to cut your watermelon up!

Amazing how good quality balsamic vinegar makes things taste sweeter and not more bitter. And speaking of bitter, it's with no small pang of buttersweetness that I go back to work, after a week off from the winery.  I got a lot done around the house, including adding some fireproof venting to the attic, painting the chicken mansion, picking berries (this is winding down now) and doing some office work.

Today I will be doing an off-site wine pouring on a train heading down the coast, which is stressful (because I've never done anything like this and want to do a good job) but also fun because, hey, wine on a train, right?

Wish me luck!

Time, transitions and tasks

I just realized I addressed a very similar topic in a previous post called "The Simple Life."  Forgive the repetition.  Obviously this is something on my mind a lot these days!

The other night I started reading a journal I kept during the junior and senior year that our sons were in high school.  It's been a very enlightening walk down memory lane, and coincides perfectly with the upcoming anniversary of my husband and I moving to this area and our sons going to college. 

Children leaving home is one of those events that you know is going to change your life, much the same as giving birth does.  And just like giving birth, what follows is a period of readjustment -- of schedules, lifestyles, and interests -- and one's general happiness depends on how well we transition.

It took a few years for me to make the transition, but I think it's safe to say now that I have successfully transitioned now and am no longer mourning the loss of my role as a hands-on Mom to a family, and no longer wondering what comes next. What comes next has been happening for some time now. In fact, I've noticed that my social calendar is more booked with work, dinner parties and events than it has been in probably 20 years.

But within that change, or any change we go through in life, for homesteaders the question can become one of integration.  For much as I learned how to integrate my homesteading activities with the kids' schedules when they were in school, I have now had to learn how to integrate them as a working, mostly-empty-nester.   

For me, it means I've had to learn to say "no" again. Frequently. Last Wednesday, for example, Big Ag and I were invited to a dinner party.  the same day, a family friend wanted to come up for a visit.  A group I'm active in scheduled a board meeting that night.  And a couple we like to socialize with came into town and wanted me to go wine tasting with them during the afternoon.

I said no to all of those lovely happenings except the dinner party, because there is only one of me and only so much time in a day.  And more than just having things that I also needed to do here, there were things I wanted to do here...things that I consider part of the good work and the good life we live.  And I wanted to be here doing those things more than I wanted to be doing any of the other things (although make no mistake, all of the aforementioned social activities would have been fun.)

So, for me, the biggest lesson I've learned is that if I want to keep growing my own food and doing all the other homesteading activities I enjoy doing, I have to give it priority scheduling, which means turning down other things.  Unless I want to be making soap at midnight, or canning at dawn...slogging through chores during times I'm sure to not enjoy doing them.  

We choose our friends.  We choose our work.  And we also get to choose how we spend our time.  But in choosing the homesteading lifestyle, sometimes we have to choose our own homemade soap over a day of wine tasting, or a morning spent watering and weeding over coffee in town with a friend.  

These may not be easy decisions, but if you value what comes out of your kitchen or your garden, they are necessary.  And they carry with them a peace, a mindfulness, and a tangible reward that is extremely satisfying.

Because saying "no" to one part of your life can often mean saying "yes" to another.

Some more about Spanish wines

As promised, I'm going to do a little write-up on the wines we had at our Spanish Varietals tasting party last week, and provide some brief descriptors on each.  ALL of these wines are relatively inexpensive, and ALL were outstanding.  Honestly.  Usually when we have these parties there is at least one wine where I will seriously say "hmm...not my favorite," (being kind) but this time each wine was a hit for both me and Big Ag.

Spain is a country known for its wide variety of climate and therefore the quality of their wines varies widely from region to region.  In general, the central tablelands and southeast areas of Spain are known for making the best wine, although due to the hilly terrain, great microclimates for growing can be found throughout the country. 

The first wine we sampled was a Cava, or Spanish Sparkling White Wine.  Unfortunately, I did not see the bottle, but I was impressed with Cava if what we had was typical.  Not overly sweet OR dry, it was balanced, bubbly and exactly what you want out of a sparkling wine.

Our first red wine was Garnacha, made by Tapena, 2010.  Although this is a grenache (despite the spelling being slightly different), it was actually a heavier wine and therefore should probably have been served further down on the list with the bigger reds, but no matter.  Garnet colored, smooth, with strong notes of blackberries, it is a full-bodied wine with a lovely finish.

The second wine was the one we brought, Encanto (Charm) Seleccion 2008. (It was a steal at $20!)  This wine was made from 100% Mencia varietal grapes. A clear, ruby coloring, medium bodied wine which would pair well with almost anything you'd normally have a Pinot, Zin, or Grenache with, it had an awesome bouquet of fruit blossoms, and lots of black cherry notes on the palate.  We will be buying this again.

Third up was the Bodegas Vaca Rojo, 2009.  It had a more orange tint to it, a lot of soft lemon in the bouquet, and some nice lemon and orange notes on the palate.  Of all the wines, this was probably my favorite, and I'm thrilled that it is made right here in Paso Robles and on sale at the winery's tasting room downtown. I can't wait to go in and try their other Spanish varietals as well.  And gorgeous label artwork, don't you think?

The last was Romanico, Bodega Teso la Monja.  Made from Tinto del Toro grapes, this had a strong bouquet of cloves, tobacco and french bread.  Lots of oak and smoky notes on the palate, with a lovely, strong finish.  This would be great with pasta,  paella or just a great loaf of bread and some cheese. It's a big red wine.

I should note that at least 4 out of 5 of these are available at BevMo, even though I'm loathe to recommend them because I think it's better to buy direct (but know that's not always possible).  And the Bodegas Vaca Rojo is probably available on Bodegas' website, so you could buy it there since it's from a small boutique winery and probably not in BevMo's huge system.

Either way, Cheers, or as they say in Spain, Te Brindo!

Spanish wines and strawberry jam

Last week was a social whirlwind, so this week will be a homesteading one.  

Bodegas "Vaca Rojo." Yum. Just Yum.

We had two parties to attend this last week, the first being a full paella dinner with wine tasting, featuring Spanish varietal wines.  We all bought a wine, no one knowing much about Spanish wine beyond Tempranillo, all of us hoping for the best.  The results were amazing.  From Cava to Mencia to Monastrell, each wine was amazing, complex and delicious, capable of pairing with foods far beyond just Spanish dishes.  We will be buying more, especially since a couple of local wineries actually produce great wines from Spanish vines.

The second was the pick-up party at the winery, where we were again wined and dined and where I get to take off my "employee" hat and put on my "wine club member" one. Lots of friends, lots of wine and great food. 

So as you can imagine, between preparing for parties and working, not much got done on the homesteading front other than planting some lettuce transplants.  This week, I will be hitting the ground running.  I have horticultural vinegar to spray on weeds, chickens to attend to, strawberry jam to make and banana buckwheat pancakes to serve. I even have a container of shea butter so I can make some lotions, to soothe my hands, which have become a little dried out from digging in the dirt. 

I may even make some hot cross buns, because, well, hot cross buns. (They need no other reason.)

Sometimes being out and about actually inspires me to get back to this good and simple work I do here, proving the theory that we're better at whatever we're doing when we take a break and do other things for awhile.

I'm happy to be heading back to the kitchen, the chicken coop and the pasture, full of paella and wine, grateful for spring and the good life on the land we have here.

My inner homesteader's idea of a shopping spree

Success

The dinner party for 10 last night went off without a hitch, which was no mean feat, considering my relative inexperience hosting large groups for sit-down dinners and wine tastings.

At each place setting were wine analysis sheets, rating the wines' appearance, bouquet, and taste/texture.  We do our wine tasting first, and then share a meal, and since the theme for this tasting was "Big Reds," I served a Prime Rib with Yorkshire Puddings, mapled yams, a large salad, and chocolate mousse for dessert.

One of my neighbors is an enologist for a westside winery, and since he's in our winery's Wine Club, I invited him and his partner to join us for the festivities.  There were some interesting discussions on corks, winemaking, and Old World vs. New World wines, which I found fascinating. The great thing about wine is that, when the conversation turns to "industry talk, " it's still always happy and enjoyable conversation, filled with laughter and learning.

In order to keep strong smells out of the house (essential when doing sensory analysis of wine) I used the propane barbecue outside to cook the prime rib, and luckily was about to get it to a steady 325 degrees and cook it perfectly.  The Yorkshire Puddings were the big hit of the night, I think mainly because people were pleasantly surprised to learn they were not going to be forced to eat actual pudding at dinner.

An the chocolate mousses were devoured as well, including the vegan ones I made for my guests with dietary restrictions (who bought an incredible grains and mushroom casserole as their main course, which was absolutely delicious -- I snuck a bite!).  I actually enjoyed the vegan mousse as well, especially with the coconut milk whipped cream I used as a topping.

And the big wine winner for the night was this beauty:

Unbelievably soft and full-bodied, full of lovely fruit notes but with enough tannins to perfectly balance the wine.  I am not exaggerating when I say this is absolutely, hands-down, the best Pinot I've ever had the pleasure to taste.  Ever.

Brrr!

O.K.,  O.K.  I'm sure you get it by now.  I am obsessed with the weather.  I once even started a novel where the character who saved the day was going to be an elderly man in a rest home whose main pleasure in life was watching The Weather Channel and checking regional radar every 10 minutes.   They say every author puts a bit of themselves into each character they create, so there you are. Here is what we will have in store for us tomorrow:

This may not be cold for many northern places in the United States. But honestly, 16 degrees is cold for this part of Coastal California.  Our homes are not even designed for weather this cold. I already know our water will freeze at the well pump, so am planning on taking my shower and getting my water poured for my morning coffee tonight.  It won't last forever, but it will be a cold day in hell (colder than this) before the weather stops me from having my morning Joe even if it is Decaffienated-Joe.  A warm drink in the morning is still the best way to start any day.

At the winery where I work, it's ding-dang cold, too. Customers blow into the tasting room with the chill winds, in all bundled up, eschewing the outdoor views from the patio (despite the awesome scenery) in favor of a warm place inside at the bar.

The vines are asleep; the cold will not hurt or affect them in any way, and all the fruit was harvested long ago.  The smell of fermenting grapes, the fruit flies, and the excitement of bottles being put up or shipped out all went away, along with fall's leaves and balmy breezes.   Now we do everything at a slower pace.  We visit with customers longer, pause to take in the late afternoon sky as we polish glassware behind the bar, and talk of holiday plans.

I love working in a tasting room at this time of year, as I get to spend more time leisurely getting to know our customers, organizing and re-stocking wines and other goodies, and enjoying (literally) the fruits of our labor.  It's a time when I truly take stock and feel lucky to get paid for the work I do, because many days, it feels like pure pleasure.

Around the homestead, it's all about keeping warm in the hours I'm home, with less to do outdoors than usual.  I have a decent, carrot and onion crop in the ground right now, but only the lettuces need to be covered. So I just keep things watered, thaw the poultry's water each morning, and make sure everyone has what they need to keep warm, including us.  Last spring's carrots, peas and the pig we butchered go into hot soups and stews to warm us from the inside out.  

Wine and veggies are alike, in that they are little tastes of spring and summer weather, keeping us warm throughout the long winter's nights.  So have some hearty stew, have some wine, and look out the windows and dream of whatever makes you feel a little warmer.  It's cold out there.