The fat lady has sang her last tune. The CHEERS! season has left the building. What do we have to show for our months of support? We will always have the memories. Blocked streets, streets with meat and treats. Bopping bands, lovers holding hands. More wine in a two block radius than one man or woman slurp in a year. But most of all we will be able to look back on a time where the oft quiet and sometimes stuffy streets of St. Helena opened up her arms to embrace the community that supports her. I regretfully write the last of my event wrap-ups for the 2009 season. With a pilot season like this, we can be sure that the CHEERS! show will be renewed for next year (or lets sure as hello hope so). Woodhouse Chocolates. We all know how good they are. Christ, people come to St. Helena just to score some of that magical gooey sweetness, not the mention the bonafide chocolate themed art sculptures that rival the Sax 5th Avenue windows during holiday season in NYC. But just because we know, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remind everyone how truly delicious they are. As a confirmed choco-holic I can confidently say that the rock-salt milk and dark chocolate caramels that they have served up for free, yes free, each and every CHEERS! social are almost orgasmic. Not almost, they are. Slick, smooth, crunchy, chocolate with a sultry kick. Sweetness that just keeps on giving long after the taffy has been sucked down your food tube. I guess it is safe for me to come clean. Each month I would eat my ration – one milk, one dark. Then I would wait an hour or so, and despite being at the other end of the strip, I would haul it back to Woodhouse to slip another helping of those chocolate pillows down my throat. Two more of the dark chocolates. Then I would get some of my party people to give me their ration. My waistline might never forgive me, but my belly will forever thank me. The boy scouts of our fair city served up birds, lots of bbq birds. Protein that I was in dire need of, to soak up all the wine I was feverishly tasting. It was the last night of CHEERS! 2009, somebody had to do it. Yay Scouts! Service with a suited up smile. On to the wine! I never see or get enough Meritage. But I found a spanking good one from the folks at Ehlers. A light yet bold bowl of fruit comes to mind. Also, a little tweet of tang. Their Meritage made me merry! The Eagle Eye wine, dubbed Voluptuous, that's its name, and it was a voluptuous red blend both dry and sweet-tart, plus the bottles themselves were a work of art, yest art on a bottle. A husband and wife team, he masterminds the wine, and her the art that paints each and every bottle. Tom Scott Vineyard’s Barn Burner Cab. This baby went so well with my dark-choco bites (Woodhouse), at $125 not an economic stimulus wine, but worth every penny. The fact they were giving away this stuff for free was downright dandy. Smooth with a kick. It was as pretty in color as it was in taste. A workhorse of a wine! Five Vintners Zin. A roll off the tongue fruity tootie pie delight! I don’t even fully understand what that means, other than damn good wine. Orin Sift Cellars never cease to surpise my each and every social. Their wine is like young love, every day you discover something new to adore. One month I love Prisoners, then another I salivate for the Papillon, which was my love this CHEERS! I fell under the spell of this blueberry-dipped chocolate of a wine. I was so under its magic, I think I might have started kissing radom people to the left and right of me at the tasting counter. Or maybe I was just tongue kissing the glass and the wine that it was holding. Who cares, it was love at first slurp. I want to cuddle up with this vino on crisp fall and winter nights. Divine to the last drop. And last but not least Turley’s Howell Mt. Zin, a wine that I am no stranger to, but it never ceases to amaze me in its brilliance. Spicy, slick and smooth, just like I enjoy my m_n, well you don’t need to know that. So in the end, as sad as I am to see my CHEERS! social scene draw to a close, it was time. Just like my former home of New York, it is always good to leave people loving you as opposed to remembering you in a less appealing light, because you didn’t say goodbye soon enough (Sorry Seinfeld, as much as adored you I wished you said “when” just one episode sooner). So I raise a glass to good times past. Until next year, 3 cheers for CHEERS! Wacky WineSense rating: 5 grapes x 5 grapes x 5 grapes, forget it - good times all season long!
The end of a very good year - bon voyage CHEERS! St. Helena
The fat lady has sang her last tune. The CHEERS! season has left the building. What do we have to show for our months of support? We will always have the memories. Blocked streets, streets with meat and treats. Bopping bands, lovers holding hands. More wine in a two block radius than one man or woman slurp in a year. But most of all we will be able to look back on a time where the oft quiet and sometimes stuffy streets of St. Helena opened up her arms to embrace the community that supports her. I regretfully write the last of my event wrap-ups for the 2009 season. With a pilot season like this, we can be sure that the CHEERS! show will be renewed for next year (or lets sure as hello hope so). Woodhouse Chocolates. We all know how good they are. Christ, people come to St. Helena just to score some of that magical gooey sweetness, not the mention the bonafide chocolate themed art sculptures that rival the Sax 5th Avenue windows during holiday season in NYC. But just because we know, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remind everyone how truly delicious they are. As a confirmed choco-holic I can confidently say that the rock-salt milk and dark chocolate caramels that they have served up for free, yes free, each and every CHEERS! social are almost orgasmic. Not almost, they are. Slick, smooth, crunchy, chocolate with a sultry kick. Sweetness that just keeps on giving long after the taffy has been sucked down your food tube. I guess it is safe for me to come clean. Each month I would eat my ration – one milk, one dark. Then I would wait an hour or so, and despite being at the other end of the strip, I would haul it back to Woodhouse to slip another helping of those chocolate pillows down my throat. Two more of the dark chocolates. Then I would get some of my party people to give me their ration. My waistline might never forgive me, but my belly will forever thank me. The boy scouts of our fair city served up birds, lots of bbq birds. Protein that I was in dire need of, to soak up all the wine I was feverishly tasting. It was the last night of CHEERS! 2009, somebody had to do it. Yay Scouts! Service with a suited up smile. On to the wine! I never see or get enough Meritage. But I found a spanking good one from the folks at Ehlers. A light yet bold bowl of fruit comes to mind. Also, a little tweet of tang. Their Meritage made me merry! The Eagle Eye wine, dubbed Voluptuous, that's its name, and it was a voluptuous red blend both dry and sweet-tart, plus the bottles themselves were a work of art, yest art on a bottle. A husband and wife team, he masterminds the wine, and her the art that paints each and every bottle. Tom Scott Vineyard’s Barn Burner Cab. This baby went so well with my dark-choco bites (Woodhouse), at $125 not an economic stimulus wine, but worth every penny. The fact they were giving away this stuff for free was downright dandy. Smooth with a kick. It was as pretty in color as it was in taste. A workhorse of a wine! Five Vintners Zin. A roll off the tongue fruity tootie pie delight! I don’t even fully understand what that means, other than damn good wine. Orin Sift Cellars never cease to surpise my each and every social. Their wine is like young love, every day you discover something new to adore. One month I love Prisoners, then another I salivate for the Papillon, which was my love this CHEERS! I fell under the spell of this blueberry-dipped chocolate of a wine. I was so under its magic, I think I might have started kissing radom people to the left and right of me at the tasting counter. Or maybe I was just tongue kissing the glass and the wine that it was holding. Who cares, it was love at first slurp. I want to cuddle up with this vino on crisp fall and winter nights. Divine to the last drop. And last but not least Turley’s Howell Mt. Zin, a wine that I am no stranger to, but it never ceases to amaze me in its brilliance. Spicy, slick and smooth, just like I enjoy my m_n, well you don’t need to know that. So in the end, as sad as I am to see my CHEERS! social scene draw to a close, it was time. Just like my former home of New York, it is always good to leave people loving you as opposed to remembering you in a less appealing light, because you didn’t say goodbye soon enough (Sorry Seinfeld, as much as adored you I wished you said “when” just one episode sooner). So I raise a glass to good times past. Until next year, 3 cheers for CHEERS! Wacky WineSense rating: 5 grapes x 5 grapes x 5 grapes, forget it - good times all season long!
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