El Bloggo Torcido - Twisted Oak Winery

Announcing WBW #53: Wine for Breakfast!

El Bloggo Torcido and Twisted Oak Winery are pleased to be the host for Wine Blogging Wednesday** (AKA WBW) for January 2009! The theme we have chosen is Wine for Breakfast.

Now - you don't necessarily have to actually consume wine before 10AM to participate - though it is certainly not discouraged. If you are like me (actually, no one is like me) (just saying) once in a while you like have to have breakfast for dinner. In fact, for me some breakfast foods are my favorite comfort foods.

So, what we are doing is pairing wine with traditional breakfast foods. For many of us that means bacon and eggs, pancakes, waffles, etc. But if your culture enjoys fermented fish for breakfast, go for it!

For the wine, choose anything you want, as long as it is a dry red or white wine. This means no sparkling wine, no rosés, no dessert wine, and no mixing with anything - i.e. no wine cocktails. The idea is to get outside of the "Sunday Brunch" mentality. Mimosa would be too easy, right? Dare to try something different - you might even find a surprise pairing for Spam Egg Sausage and Spam!

This Wine Blogging Wednesday takes place on Wednesday (oddly enough) January 14th, which should give you plenty of time to plan an eggceptional wine pairing!

For Fun: As a warm up, tell me below in the comments - What is the weirdest thing you have ever eaten (or drank) for breakfast?

**Wine Blogging Wednesday is a monthly event where participants choose a wine based on a monthly theme and then write a post about their experience. I'll post more details about how to participate when we get close to the 14th.

Shocking Developments

This time of year you'll see all sorts of gift guides, including wine gadget gift guides. Seems like there are a whole bunch of gadgets out these days that propose to make your wine taste like it has had years of aging, or to instantly decant the wine.

I apologize in advance for the fact that this little missive on my part is late in the gift purchasing cycle, but it was prompted by an email I received from Arthur of winesooth, pointing me to this article in the Telegraph (UK). The article describes a new system being developed in China which claims that, by applying electric fields, they can make a wine taste like it has been aged 20 years.

It's been eons since I took chemistry classes, but among the little I do recall is that chemical reactions either release energy or require energy to occur (exothermic and endothermic, right? I amaze myself sometimes...) Anyway, under normal cellar conditions (ie.e, not warm) it may be that there is a lower level of energy that allows some reactions to occur, while other do not have the energy available to occur. And it may very well be that those higher energy reactions are undesirable. (If you want proof, leave your age-worthy bottle out in the summer sun for a week. Ew.)

So, instead of excessive heat (which I think we can agree is bad) we have an electric field applied. This electricity may be less energetic than raw heat, we could suppose. Still, it is no less random and you could easily imagine good and bad reactions occurring. So, like every other "get aged quick" scheme I have ever seen, it is certainly true that good reactions can be happening. But do all of the good reactions that can happen with real aging occur? And what bad reactions also happen? Certainly the wine can taste different, sometimes maybe even better - but will it taste as good as it will 20 years from now? Hop in your time machine to find out - but I have my doubts...

I rather enjoy popping open a nice bottle and letting it open up and develop in my glass over the course of an evening. And I also enjoy pulling an older bottle out of my "cellar" to enjoy what it has become. It seems to me that expensive aerating gadgets and systems like this aren't at all necessary to enjoying a nice bottle wine. So next time you go shopping for a nice gift for your wine geek friends, give them wine instead. (Or how about a nice wine club membership?)

On the other hand, playing with high voltage is wicked cool!

(Remember to buy your raffle tickets for A Menu For Hope before December 24th!)

Funniest Email of 2008: A Major Award!

Received just the other day, thought I was going to blow coffee. Here's how it starts:

"Earlier this year, I sent a notification email to you recognizing that Twisted Oak Winery, LLC had been selected for the 2008 Best of Vallecito Award in the Wineries category by the U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA)."

Didn't see the earlier email - perhaps lost in the clutter or my spam blocker actually did the right thing. Anyway, it continues...

"In recognition of your achievement, a 2008 Best of Vallecito Award plaque has been designed for display at your place of business. You may arrange to have your award sent directly to Twisted Oak Winery, LLC by following the simple steps on the 2008 Best of Vallecito Award order form. Simply copy and paste this link into your browser to access the order form..."

Now I need to explain. Twisted Oak Winery is located in the picturesque little town of Vallecito, located between the much larger picturesque towns of Murphys and Angels Camp. Right away that should tell you something - Vallecito has a bit over 300 folks in it - heck, I think half of them are from the same family!

It's going to give me great enjoyment to lord this Major Award over the entire Vallecito business community. Russ Irish of Irish Vineyards, I'm talking to you. Just you!

(Don't forget to donate to A Menu For Hope!)

Menu For Hope 2008

It's that most wonderful time of the year again! Not just the holidays, it's also time for A Menu for Hope! This is the fifth year of this project, in which members of the food and wine blogging community gather to raise money for food-related charities. The project was started by Chez Pim and again this year, we will be supporting the UN World Food Programme. With a special permission from the WFP, the funds raised by A Menu for Hope will be earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa.(Last year, almost $100,000 was raised!)

Pim explains the excellent reasons for supporting the school lunch program on her blog, and we think it's a great idea too! And here is our contribution...

We are pleased to be able to contribute a special vertical of our flagship blend, The Spaniard. If you win our prize, you will receive one bottle each of:

• 2002 Calaveras County The Spaniard (the first vintage)
• 2004 Calaveras County The Spaniard (we didn't make a 2003)
• 2005 Calaveras County The Spaniard (noticing a theme here yet?)
• 2006 Calaveras County The Spaniard (the current vintage)

You can bid on this bundle of Twisted Vertical Goodness (valued at $250) using Prize Code WB26 - and you can bid for all sorts of other cool stuff by following these easy instructions:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2008/12/menu-for-hope-2.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://firstgiving.com/menuforhope5 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize(s) you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for WB01 and 3 tickets for WB26. Please write 2xWB01, 3xWB26.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim (http://www.chezpim.com) on January 12th for the results of the raffle.

Twisted Twee: Winequesters

Jim and Katya of Wine Questers sent over pictures of their Twisted Twee, but the Twisted altar - er - table decoration really caught my eye. Nice placement of The Spaniard especially. Enjoy! And send me yours to tastingroom@twistedoak.com!

"Oh Twisted Twee...!"

The picture below was posted earlier today on twitpic.com (thanks Thea!)

Do you have a rubber chicken in your Christmas Tree? Or is your tree especially Twisted in some other way? If so, send me a picture to tastingroom@twistedoak.com and I'll post it here - or share a link to your picture in the comments below.

Twisted Tidings!

So, Why DID...?

Everyone wants to know:

So, why did the Rubber Chicken cross the road?

Please post your favorite answer(s) in the comments below!

(Pictured: World Famous 44-ounce Rubber Chicken Nugget on permanent display at Twisted Oak's Murphys Tasting Room.)

Pairing Wine with People

No, not some sort of Twisted Soylent Green pairing... (maybe we'll do that another time!)

I saw this article from last Friday in the SF Chronicle about trying to pick a wine to give someone based on their gender, personality type, other drinking habits etc. Go ahead, take a look, I'll wait.

tap... tap... tap...

OK, good, thanks for coming back! I think it might be fun to take this week and think about how some our Twisted Best might pair with people. So, what kind of people do you think our 2004 Calaveras Syrah and our 2007 Calaveras Viognier pair best with? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

(And please do leave a valid email with your comment. You never know who I might decide to drop a free shipping code on!)