Tag Archives: Sparkling wine

J Vineyards Makes it Right

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A few weeks ago I wrote about a negative experience my friends and I had at  J Vineyards & Winery in Healdsburg. The short story is that we were part of a Wine Club special event tasting where employees were uneducated about the wines and food pairings, they lacked attention to detail and their guests and the “sparkling only” wine shipment was overpriced and handed to me not with pride but apologetically.

A few days after sharing that experience I was contacted over Twitter and the phone by Carolyne, a representative of the winery. We talked at length about what happened, what should have happened and what will happen in the future. Carolyne was kind to listen, apologize and provide me with the confidence that myself and others will not be dealt the same poor service ever again at their tasting room. Continue reading →

J Vineyards and Winery, a Bitter Taste

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J Vineyards and WineryI tweeted earlier in the week that Kayla, Marris and I had a dreadful wine tasting at J Vineyards in Healdsburg. J Vineyards responded on Twitter requesting I direct message them my story so they could make it right. I told them I’d put it together here and so I have. A direct message, while definitely tidier for J, would never allow me to fully explain my disappointment. Here goes:

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you probably know about the never-ending renovation I’ve been doing on my house in wine country. I find myself going up north to meet with a contractor or furniture delivery person at least once a month. While this might be annoying to some, and it is to me, the best part of these trips is getting to see Kayla.

It’s a rare event that Kayla and I are in the same zip code and don’t do some sort of wine tasting. So on this trip to Sonoma County, she and I decided to hit up J Vineyards for a quick tasting and pick up my wine club shipment. Marris was in town and joined in on the adventure. But before we go there, let’s learn a bit about the winery and my history visiting them. Continue reading →

The Princess’s Birthday

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Holy cow. I had a ton of friends with birthdays yesterday.  It seems like people that had birthdays yesterday are just really awesome friends. Kohl, Patrick and of course, Karen in particular.

Karen (@ok2baprincess), it turns out, is super popular.  Nicole, who set this whole deal up, had something like 30 people at Sycamore’s for her birthday dinner.  How she got everyone together from such different circles, who really knows.

The wait at Sycamore was pretty intense, but a few of us decided a bottle of wine would fix that.

Oh, and for this post, just click the little pictures to see them larger. Didn’t want to make the page super slow to load. Also, you can click the right side of any picture to go to the next one.

After our delicious dinner, we headed over to Top Ten Wines for a few glasses and some ping pong. Just about our entire troupe of people made the voyage. We totally took over that place haha.

Oh, and the wine was amazing.

Uh oh, now I’ve gone into a rant…

I don’t understand how people can NOT just love a good wine. Here in Missouri, many people don’t know what a good wine is. There are several Missouri wineries but most make crap wine, in my opinion.

Those who think they are connaisseurs of wine out here TYPICALLY think Yellow Tail is a top notch wine and Korbel, or worse, André are fabulous champanges, don’t even try to explain sparkling wine to them.

I’m not hating on Missourians, just leading up to how incredibly happy I am that most of my friends aren’t these people, especially those I was with last night.  And even if you do love André and even Riverboat Red, that’s totally fine. I’m glad that you like those wines. Just saying, I don’t and can’t stand when people compare their $8.00 bottle of Hahn Estates’ Cycles Gladiator to my Seghesio.

See it isn’t about the price so much, there are awesome bottles of economical wine. Just do the research.  A bottle of Seghesio costs you under $25 and will mop the floor with that stupid Hahn Estates’ Cycles Gladiator that my father’s side of the family is so obsessed with right now.

Though I pretty much love anything from the Dry Creek Valley.

Where the hell did that come from? Back to the festivities. So we played some ping pong and drank our wine, had our conversation. Awesome time.

Time for some more pictures!

After Top Ten, we broke up a bit, some went for karaoke while others headed home.  Of course, @bigred77 @ericcox and @turtis couldn’t help but model for the camera as we walked to our cars haha.  I love those tweeple!

The night was so much fun. We talked about changing out Sunday mornings around a bit too.  Very excited about that, oh and Cake and a Movie night.  The next one is tomorrow, Monday night! I need movie and cake suggestions.

Happy Birthday Karen! HUGS!

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