Celebration!

Happy Birthday to our fellow Wino, Beth!!  What a fun way to spend the day with a couple of good friends enjoying a fun lunch and a delicious bottle (or two) of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc.  We are always looking for ways, or should I say excuses, to get together to enjoy each others company along with finding new wines to try.  Although, at some restaurants we go back to our favorites.  Crisp whites for the summer are a great compliment for a light salad or simple entree.  Even on today's rainy gray day, nothing can spoil the friendship and love we all have for Beth!!  Thanks for obliging us :)!

As I sat down to write this blog I started to look back  and realized we 3 winos just celebrated our 1st Anniversary!! It was Friday, April 13, 2012 that Mary Jo wrote our inaugural blog.  My how time has flown by.  Going back a year or so before we ventured into blogging about our love and interest of wine, Beth was the one who started the whole "wine school", for me at least.  She had recently purchased the book "Great Wine Made Simple-Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier" by Andrea Immer Robinson.  This book gives great information on how to learn to taste.  Starting with looking at the wine, to swirling, to smelling and of course tasting.  She had shopped and found three Sauvignon Blancs for our first little experiment. I remember Beth had picked the section on "Tasting for Grassiness".  I kind of thought it was odd to be looking for that "fresh cut grass" scent in white wine but by golly we found it!  From that day forward we decided to continue on with Andrea's fun book. Since we couldn't keep the fun just to ourselves, we asked Mary Jo to join us too.

It's been a fun and exciting year of all kinds of new and exciting ventures for the three of us.  We have helped pair wines for "Grilling in the Garden" events to donating baskets for charity for in-home wine tasting parties to helping a new restaurant establish it's wine list.  And to think this all started just because we were interested in expanding a love and knowledge of wine!

So Happy Anniversary Stay at Home Winos  and Happy Birthday Beth!

Cheers!
Lisa

WINE WORD OF THE WEEK

ULLAGE:  The empty space left in bottles and barrels as a wine evaporates.  When in barrels, one must keep ullage at a minimum so the wine does not oxidize.