In the wee hours of last night, as Emily and I were picking up glasses and taking the small amount of leftovers back into the kitchen, it dawned on me that I was having the time of my life.  I stood there in the cool moonlight and was so thankful that I could share a part of myself with so many people. The act of sharing food and wine is such a basic part of life that is often overlooked and taken for granted.  One of our goals is to bring back that sense of sharing and awareness.   Bar-B-Que aside, being in business, especially in the wine business, is an exercise in hospitality.  In addition to good food, good wine and good company, last night had certain vibe to it where we all came together and connected. I like to think that that’s why we’re in business.

In addition to our second and sold out VERGE BBQ at the home ranch, Mike and I have been spreading the Syrah Gospel like madmen these past few weeks. The month of August crept up on us kind of like harvest is doing this year.

Regardless, we want you to get a taste of the 2006 VERGE Syrah at Traverso’s this Saturday, August 9th. Winemaker extraordinaire Mike Brunson will be there from 12-3pm to answer all of your burning questions about why Syrah is the greatest.

Traverso’s Gourmet Foods is a Santa Rosa legend. We’re totally psyched to be there with Bill and Michael.

Where and When: 106 B Street, Santa Rosa/ 9 August 2008 @ 12-3 pm.

VERGE Wine Cellars is also extremely proud to be one of the featured wine producers at a local Slow Food event with superstar chef and farmer Doug Nicosia.

Presented by The Culinary Underground and Voluptuous Smoke, the Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple Slow Dinner 2008 will feature local, sustainably produced products (like us). The evening will include a tour of the dry-farmed organic orchard and the beyond organic tomato CSA, followed by discussions with the farmers, distiller (mmm…), chefs and the Apple Presidia director. This dinner is going to be deliciously good and we’re both excited to be there. The Slow Food Gravenstein Apple Presidia Project is all about preserving these great apples and ensuring their continued cultivation and enjoyment.

Where and When: Under the apple trees at Nana Mae’s Organic Bollinger Lane orchard / 23 August 2008 @ 4:00 pm

Contact Doralice (who rocks it!) at The Cheese Shop Healdsburg for tickets and more information. 707.433.4998. Tickets are $160 ($140 for Slow Food Members). The price includes a farm tour, producer discussions, meal, cocktail, wines, service and parking - tickets are nonrefundable, but are transferable.

Hope to see ya there!

Summertime seems to bring out the innate grillmaster in everyone and I’m no exception. I’m not a professional chef by any stretch of the word and although I do greatly admire and respect the hard hard life of heat, exertion and sacrifice that all pros must endure, I think that there is something more intimate about cooking at home. It’s a less rigorous, more open-form style of preparing food that, when combined with ingredients from the kitchen garden and the small farm next door, make the best meals. Last Saturday I cooked for 25 of my nearest and dearest and I gotta say that I enjoyed every minute of it. In this hustle and bustle world it is extremely satisfying to think about nothing else but smoke regimes, dicing vegetables, baking off galettes. I think I just used the BBQ as an excuse to get to that feeling for a little while.

To me, this brief interlude of “relaxation by cooking” is about connecting with the ingredients, with friends, and all the while still doing things on a small scale. It’s how we approach every aspect of what we do with Verge. We’d much rather cook ourselves, hang out with everyone versus putting on a massive catered party where we have no connection with what’s being served other than picking it off a list at some point and time. We like smelling and tasting and experiencing the world on a visceral level. It’s one aspect of the “why” we do what we do in this business. The same is true for our approach in viticulture. We don’t just want to farm a spot next to vineyard after vineyard; rather, we want the connection, the interplay with the land beyond, with the wild on the other side of our cultivated blocks.

With one BBQ down and two more in the works, I can’t wait to switch up the menu a bit, finding what’s freshest at the Healdsburg Farmer’s Market and getting back to that clarity of focus. Besides, bringing together all of our peeps and having a party is so much fun!

Our buds Alex and Justin did a profile of us on www.discoverwinecountry.tv.  The soundtrack will be coming out soon.

Taking a walk around the garden today, I got the feeling that life is about to get really interesting here at the home ranch. We’ve got a total of 7 raised beds ranging in size from 48 feet square to 96 feet square and there is plenty of gardening to do. With twelve or so fruit trees pushing apples, plums, peaches, there’s going to be a lot of action on the canning/preserving/pickling front. The massive amount of fruit, vegetables, and assorted goodies we’ll make from them does not bode well for the equally massive amount of work we’ve got going on in the vineyard or at Verge Wine HQ.

Mid July is prime season for grape growing. Mike is starting to see veraison in some of the earlier ripening varietals like Pinot Noir. That means Syrah is coming up soon and with heat waves (and fires) always in the cards, you never know when you’ll have to make adjustments. That’s part of what good farming is about. Making adjustments because of and dealing with the unknown. Especially when you’re farming on lands that are less predictable than the home garden, these minute tweaks are the real art of viticulture.

We’ve got some events coming up in the next few weeks too that we’ll be writing more about but here’s a sneak peak- We’re going to be pouring at Perbacco in San Francisco for Meatpaper and Gastronomica on July 20th and then we’re off to do a little underground shindig for our man Dan Lucia on the 21st. Then off to Sacramento for a private party. Oh yes, we’re down for a little privacy. Thanks to Kimberly for your tasting last week!

Verge WC also had a nice write up by Jeff Lefevere over at Good Grape.com. He was kind enough to do a 20 questions type interview with me. Check it out here. 20 Questions with Jay.

The austere Gravenstein Apple even looks antique. It demands respect. Slow Food USA deems this heirloom fruit one of the first of its applekind in North America, dating back to 1811 in Sonoma County. Do we love Sonoma County? Yes, we do. Sebastopol is the Gravenstein’s motherland, where I first fell in love with these juicy sweet-tart beautes. Even more intriguing is its resurrection. See, it was (and still is) in danger of becoming extinct due to other hardy, commercial-friendly apples (Red Delicious for instance) that can be harvested quickly and shipped long distances. Thanks to local food fanatics and tenacious organizations like Slow Food, the Gravenstein is experiencing a healthy local renaissance…grassroots like it should be.There just happens to be a Gravenstein tree hiding on the backside of our property, and we definitely have to duke it out with the local insect and bird brigades for rights to this luscious fruit. Yesterday, I picked the first bundle, half-blinded by the hot evening sun. And harvest begins! I have to admit, I break out into a cold sweat just thinkin about it in June…nervous about the thousand-and-a-half ways that we’ll need to use the fruit. Time for the grand list - canning supplies, baking tins, contact local chefs to see who needs what-when, bust out the juicer, yada-yada. I’m tired just thinking about it…but, grinnin from ear-to-ear.

For all you locals, go straight to the heart of the action at this year’s Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol, August 9th and 10th. See ya there!

About a year ago we put up a clothes line for drying our recently cleaned clothes.  We used it here and there…it was nice.  Recently the dryer stopped working  as if to say” hang your clothes you idiot, it’s 90 degrees outside and the wind is blowing over 10 mph!”  So for about two weeks we have been using the line for all of our laundry.  It’s beautiful.  The towels and sheets are crispy and have a very fresh smell (if you like smoke).  Mowgli loves the shade it provides and our kids are humiliated by the idea that somebody might see their underwear.  Which in turn  speeds up the process as they hurry to make sure none of their clothes are hanging when their friends come to visit. Excellent.  The bottom line is that conservation is one of the coolest things any of us can do.  Whether it’s for a lighter footprint, getting back to basics or just because you like your sheets to smell like your surroundings, it all makes you feel good about your efforts.  Plus it impresses any person over 70 years old!

I’ve lived in this beautiful county for most of my life and sometimes it’s shocking how perfect this place can be. From farm fresh produce to great restaurants to nice people to unbelievably perfect weather (highs in the high 70s to low 80s…lows in the high 40s to mid 50s…yeah, just perfect for sleeping). It feels good here in early summer. The trees have grown so quickly that you can recognize their new growth by the difference in green compared to the rest of the tree. The hills have turned gold with the native grasses having already dried out due to no late season rains. Gardens have taken hold and are already producing radishes, various greens, beans, etc. Sun makes people happy. So far we had it almost every day since spring. Grapevines are doing well with plenty of growth and bloom finished in most varieties (most notably Syrah). Now it’s up to us to make sure that we take care of all the cultural activities that grow great winegrapes.

While Arkansas is not necessarily known for being a haven of Bar-B-Que, I’ve had my fair share of brilliant Q from the Natural State. From McClards in Hot Springs to turkey legs at the King Biscuit Blues Festival in West Helana to roadside stands off of I-40, Arkansas has instilled in me a great love of all things smoked and slow cooked. I miss it plainly out here in Healdsburg. There are some rib shacks in Northern California but only a few take me to the BBQ Gods I’ve worshipped in the South. And even then, I still feel a bit underwhelmed. Arkansas BBQ is different. We’re not bound by the traditions of Kansas City or the beef of Texas of the vinegar and mustard based sauces of South Carolina. We’re free to experiment, free to try new things. When I’ve got the hankering for the real deal, what’s a man to do but wheel out the Weber and set things right. This is where I start.

Like all great sauces, this one is just a base on which to build. I add to it and change it every time I make it. It has no set recipe other than the start. I like to add a bit of mustard, maybe a little red wine vinegar, a little cumin, a little dash of this, a little dash of that. Stick your finger in it and taste as you go along.

My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a reserved man and took pride in everything he did. This is his recipe. I never met him but I can picture him aside the stovetop (martini in hand I bet) whipping this up with ribs just about to come off the smoker.

Bar-B-Que Sauce-The Base

Stick of butter
Half of Lemon
2 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 cup of Ketchup
Salt /pepper to taste

Slowly bring it to a boil.

A couple of months ago, I got a mysterious call from man calling himself Agent Red. He’d seen our wine written up in the San Francisco Chronicle and was curious what a Syrah from the western edge of Dry Creek Valley tasted like. Most of the time, whenever we’ve gotten requests for samples, we’ve declined for two reasons. One, we only made a couple hundred cases and two, we knew that what we didn’t sell we’d drink ourselves. It’s amazing how quick a case will go when you have three blowout BBQ’s planned for the summer. The Season is officially upon us. Pork Chops, Ribs, Butts. . . oh my.

But I was intrigued. It all sounded so clandestine. I checked a few of my industry sources and lo and behold, this guy was right up our alley. Dedicated to small-scale, handcrafted wines with stories and passion. So I sent him a few bottles but like all of these things, you just never know. Sending samples is sometimes like sending your wine into the void. So I was thrilled when he called, again mysteriously, and offered to feature the 2006 Syrah on his site. Wow! So check it out. He’s only got a few cases so get it while you can. Thanks Red, whoever you really are!

www. thewinespies.com