Steelers Training Camp St Vincent College Latrobe Pa
Downtown Pittsburgh from PNC Park Home of Pirate Baseball
PNC Park on Pittsburgh’s North Shore
Downtown Pittsburgh from Station Square
Wild Thing Baseball at Consol Field Washington Pa
SummerSounds St Clair Park Greensburg Pa
Billy Price performs at The Aquatorium Monongahela Pa
Crowd on Lawn at Jimmy Buffett Show
Jimmy Buffett at Star Lake in Burgettstown Pa
Snarky Puppy Performs at SummerSounds
McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate Jack’s Blend South Eastern Australia 2011 is a Red Wine Blend that has a solid character and the good taste that are usually only found in a more expensive wine. Jack’s Blend exhibits a light oak aroma with a medium body and a long smooth finish full of mild tannins. This offering would pair well with grilled meat or even pizza. I had the pleasure of drinking this red while sitting with friends under a starry night sky in St Clair Park , Greensburg Pa as the band Snarky Puppy performed at SummerSounds. When you need to grab a bottle or two of red wine for a gathering of friends this wine will give you good quality at a great price. Jack’s Blend can be found at P.L.C.B. stores for only $5.99 or online for under $10.
Photo: Fox Run Vineyards
Fox Run Vineyards will be holding their 21st Annual Garlic Festival on August 3rd & 4th from 11 a.m. till 5 p.m. each day. Free parking and free admission will be provided for all guests at the winery on 670 State Rte 14 Penn Yan, NY. Thursday August 1st will feature a free concert by the West Coast Celtic rock band Town Pants that will start around 6 p.m.. Please bring your lawn chairs but leave your coolers at home because food, drinks and of course wine will be available for purchase starting at 5 p.m.. More information can be found at foxrunvineyards.com or by calling 800-636-9786.
A glass of Malbec wine from Argentina (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This wine is an excellent example of a well made Malbec, it displays good body along with both red and black fruit flavors at a reasonable price. A glass of this Malbec can be equally enjoyed and savored with food or alone. I will be taking the advice of Dave De Simone, author and restaurateur, who suggests using your emotional reaction to a wine to describe its character and unique personality. My descriptive feelings about Achaval-Ferrer Malbec 2011 would be agreeable, pleasing, appetizing, rich and vigorous. Wine Spectator gave it a rating of 92 points in 2012 and it is available in P.L.C.B. stores for $29.99 but can be found online for under $25. This is a solid Malbec and worth the price.
Have you ever had to serve wine at a party or at a casual gathering and couldn’t use glass stemware? If you said yes, then this product maybe the answer to your problem. This isn’t your ordinary plastic wine glass by any stretch of the imagination. This lighted wine glass has 3 LED’s that combine to make 7 different colors plus a continuous sequence mode that displays every color. But wait there’s more, the bowl and base are removable for cleaning and the best feature of all is that “Batteries are included”. I have found that people are amused by changing the stem color with the press of a button located under the base and the different color choices replace the need for wine charms to identify a guest’s personal glass. These glasses are relatively inexpensive allowing guests to take them home with them thus eliminating the need to wash glasses at the end of the event. They can be found online at several suppliers in small quantities or in bulk.
The Sunset Café Wine Club will be presenting “An Evening in Tuscany Wine Dinner” on Tuesday, June 25th at the Sunset Café 302 S.Urania Ave, Greensburg,Pa. If you are planning to attend reservations are required and can be made by calling 724-834-9903.
Charleston Harbor, near the jetties (Photo credit: hdes.copeland)
The Mira Winery of St Helena, California is involved in an experiment were they are testing the effects of aging their wines by submerging them in the ocean. The first phase was completed recently when the four cages that were sunk 60 feet deep into Charleston Harbor, South Carolina last February were recovered. It has long been known that wine recovered from sunken ships displayed a unique flavor but the question has always been what caused the change. Wines have been aged in the ocean before around Europe and the West Coast but Mira wants to do a scientific study to determine the effects of this process including what makes it different from land aging. The next step will be to put wine that has no terrestrial aging at the bottom of Charleston Harbor for twice as long as the initial test. I wish them the best and hope to someday get to taste a wine just like the Pirates of the Caribbean drank in their day.
Springfield Grille is holding a Wine Dinner honoring the 100th Birthday of Robert Mondavi ( June 18th,1913-May 16th,2008). The dinner will be held Monday June,17th beginning 6:30 p.m. at 1226 Perry Hwy Mercer, PA 16137. The cost will be $50 per person and for reservations please call 724-748-3589.
It is Day 6 and our trip is nearing it’s conclusion but not before we take part in a wine blending lesson at the Franciscan Winery followed by lunch at the Culinary Institute of America. During the drive on Highway 12 I noticed rose bushes at the end of the rows in many of the vineyards and I was told the reason is they are effected by the Phylloxera louse before the vines get infested thus providing an early warning alert to the presence of this dreaded pest, in essence they are the “Canary in the coal mine” for wine country. We arrived at the Franciscan Winery and were immediately taken with the beauty of the winery and an it’s neatly manicured grounds. Inside the main building we divide into four teams and begin to blend our wine under the watchful eye of Fred, our instructor. Our 45 minute assignment is to blend a wine, set a price that we think the wine would sell for, design and make a label, bottle, cork and label our wine then make presentation to the group stating why our wine should be judged the winner. After sampling each blend and laughing a lot, we realized we were all winners that day. Our next destination is St. Helena and the Culinary Institute of America for lunch and a brief history lesson of this magnificent building that had served as the Christian Brothers Winery for so many years until an earthquake left it unstable, only to be saved from demolition by the C.I.A. for future generations. Everyone was seated for lunch around a very large table in a cavernous room on the 2nd floor directly across from the bustling teaching kitchens of the Academy. During our meal an Executive Chef from the school conducted a presentation on the preparation of a Galette, which by no coincidence just happened to be our dessert . Upon returning to the hotel we pack our bags for the trip home tomorrow, then we got ready for our last night together with our friends at the “Wine Maker’s Dinner”. At dinner that evening we would laugh, eat and drink as we enjoyed a superb meal of Beef Short Ribs prepared by Chef Andrew Wilson of the Carneros Bistro and wine pairings by Highway 12 Winery. The one consistent message I got throughout Sonoma and Napa Valley was that California winemakers are expecting the 2012 vintage to be exceptional and that it will be a year that we will remember. The evening winds to a close and we all say our goodnights knowing that tomorrow we will be saying our goodbyes.
Rose Bushes In The Vineyards
Fountain At The Franciscan Winery
The Bottles Of Wine We Blended At The Franciscan Winery
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