Casa Caudill’s blog

What is the best beer on planet Earth? 
Submitted by Remmy Van Hornie.

Just one?!

Of course, I love Guinness.  I think it's quite possibly my favorite beer of all time.

I'm also a big fan of Anchor Steam's Christmas Ale. 

For the summer months, I really love Hoegaarden.

What does summer mean to you?  For me, it usually means multiple trips to wine country but this summer we took it easy with local travel and instead focused on beachy travel throughout the US.  In July we visited Newburyport, Massachusetts for my friend E's wedding reception, and then at the end of  August we headed off to Oahu for my 30th birthday.  If these photos don''t scream SUMMER, I don't know what does.

view from kualoa ranch

waikiki beach

Dear readers, we're heading back to LJ. I know you probably think we are indecisive and have an awful time making up our minds.  And for the most part, you would be right.  While the features here are cool, I'm not sure they can make up for our friends and family not being able to respond without signing up for an account.  In the end, the people who this blog was for were locked out of the conversation, and that felt weird.  So, see you on the flip side.

Introducing the new House of Caudill.

The last time we went up to wine country was in June for the Days of Wine & Lavender festival at Matanzas Creek Winery.  We're wine club members there and at Harvest Moon Winery and rather than having them ship us our wine, we make a point to drive up there and pick it up ourselves every quarter.  Due to all of the activity of this summer, we were woefully behind on our orders so decided to head up there today. In between visiting each of those wineries, we stopped off at Manzanita Creek, where we proceeded to buy a case of zinfandel, talk with the wine maker Jack (a blue-eyed sicilian like Alan and his mom), and just drink a lot of great wine.  We also signed up for their wine club.  Oh, and we got to eat a petite syrah grape straight off the truck.  Good stuff. 

We were thinking of canceling our membership at Matanzas Creek but when we got up there, they were having a special tasting just for wine club members in the back of the tasting room and it reminded me what I loved about the place when we signed up about a year ago.  So we picked up our shipment from July and picked out and paid for our October shipment since the next time we'll make it up there is probably December.

I would love to go to the Wine & Food Affair like we did back in 2005 (one of my favorite event experiences up there), but since it's the week before we leave for Italy, I very much doubt we'll get a chance.  Manzanita Creek is participating this year and he was asking us about it since they hadn't done it before. 

We also tried to stop off at Marimar Torres, but they were closed for harvest.  A couple of places were, actually, including one of our old favorites Arista.  I say "old favorites" because they no longer make zinfandel and are focused entirely on expensive pinots. Oh, we also stopped off at Gary Farrell for the first time, but I didn't like the environment (neither did Alan).  While the setting was absolutely magnificent and the tasting room was gorgeous, the woman pouring our wine seemed to be a sycophant and was a little too hyped on "Gary."  It was, "Gary, Gary, Gary" out of her mouth and just so ... unsettling.  I like places that are a bit more down-to-earth and really just relaxed about wine making and drinking.  She made a big production about it all.  The wines were okay, maybe a bit too mellow for me.  I started drinking wine at a time when berry bombs were popular and high alcohol content was the norm, so that's what I've grown to like.  Subtle is not really what I'm looking for in a zinfandel, and all of their wines didn't really have a distinctive feature/taste.  That is, except for the cabernet.  It tasted like I was biting in to green olives and was just very unpleasant.  It was to the point where I actually hated the wine and if I was at an event, would have drank water instead of it.  It just sat that poorly with my tastebuds. So, showing up at Manzanita Creek was a welcome respite from the previous experience.

All in all though, a good day for wine.  We're now up to 65 bottles.  We've definitely come a long way from sitting out on the porch drinking boxed wine.  Very far indeed.

09.23.06

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

I hate mornings.  If I could sleep until 9am everyday, my quality of life would increase tenfold.

Show us something with wings.

SF bay

I really wish VOX would allow people who are not registered with the site to comment on blogs.  The reason we have this blog is to keep friends and family updated on what's going on with our lives.  I have it on good authority that some people have stopped reading because they can't communicate directly with us and really, they don't want to sign up for VOX.  I wonder if there are any plans in the future to open comments to all readers and not just registered users?  I know it would make me happy, and I imagine a bunch of others as well.  If not, I may consider closing down shop and going back to LJ.  I'd be sacrificing look and feel for communication capabilities, but if the point of my blog is to communicate with others who I don't necessarily speak to on a regular basis and who aren't on my friends list, that may be the best way.

I'm not sure there's a prettier blog out there than delicious days.  Not only is the food talk mouth-watering, but the blogger is an extraordinary food photographer.  It's truly one of my favorites sites to visit, if for nothing other than to just LOOK.

What was the highlight of your summer?
Submitted by ladym.vox.com.

Obviously, that would be selling our loft and buying the current Casa Caudill.

Memoirs of a Geisha

We've finished season 2 of Entourage, are up to episode 9 of season 2 of LOST, and will be watching Memoirs of a Geisha at some point, I would imagine.  I've seen it once, but b/c I was watching it with a bunch of chatty girls, I missed a lot of the dialogue.