Well, I arrived in Minnesota last night and imbibed in some local brews while watching a 16 inning Twins v Tigers marathon.  Unfortunately, my beloved Twinks lost but it was good to finally relax.  The past ten days have been a whirlwind; so, it was very, very nice to board the plane yesterday leaving San Francisco bound for Minneapolis.

And now I’m reminded of my high school days as I sit in my Mom’s basement typing away while listening to music.  It’s overcast and humid….signs point toward rain.  You gotta love Midwest summers!  :-)  Ok, let’s get to the nitty gritty…what the hell have I been doing the last few days?

When I last left our regular scheduled programming I was embarking on the Pinot Days marathon.  My Saturday tasting at Fort Mason went very well.  i poured and presented the 07 KB Keefer Vineyard pinot. It showed amazingly well.  The tasting format was blind (which always gives me pause b/c I don’t want to be the one winemaker who can’t pick out his own wine — but I did — whew).   Some highlights for me were the Kanzler Vineyards Sonoma Coast and Lynmar Terra de Promisio.  You should know KB sources fruit from both these vineyards — so you could say I’m biased — but these are truly cool wines.

Saturday night I had dinner in the city with a friend who co-owns a cool wine, beer, and spirits social networking site call Nirvino.  We ate at a Sardinian restaurant called La Ciccia.  Amazing.  They had to roll me out of the place I ate some much!!

Sunday was the PD Grand Tasting.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I poured my Spell pinots. This was the first public event for my Spell project.  As such, I was cautiously optimistic.  Would anyone know me or my wines?  Turns out yes!  I poured through eighteen bottles of my two pinots - the Weir Vineyard and the Barton Vineyard in three hours.  And, no I wasn’t pouring full glasses!  Great turn out on Sunday.  I’m already looking forward to PD 2010!!

Sunday night I met with a cool group of people at Foreign Cinema.  Great food and great wines.  Had some very cool German Rieslings, Syrahs and Chards.  Highlights for me were the 03 Clape Cornas and 07 Terchero Gewurtz…a very sexy wine with cool acidity.  

OK, am I done?  Writing this is getting me exhausted.  Monday was the first day of the KB Pinot Retreat.  A very cool 3 day event we hosted for mailing list customers.  We golfed Monday…in my case that means spraying the ball all over the course.  But, hey it was fun!  We had dinner at the winery Monday night.  Tasted some past vintages of KB.  If you have a bottle of the 05 Koplen pinot you’re very lucky.  It’s screaming!  

Onto Tuesday…..we took the group to the Amber Ridge Vineyard. More wine, more food, more beer, more fatigue :-)  Made me think harvest isn’t too far away.  We cruised back to the winery for a Keefer vineyard blending seminar.  The owners of Keefer were kind enough to come and join us.  Great people.   To wrap up the evening we headed to a RRV vineyard for a bbq and more booze.  I finally had to call it quits around 10pm. 

Wednesday and Thursday were recovery days.   Clean-up.  Meetings.  A yearning for the long weekend.  Hope everyone enjoys the 4th holiday!  I’m gonna take a nap :-). 

Cheers, Shane