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Wine Reviews

Dining - Wine Reviews

Bruzzone Family Vineyards

Wednesday, 18 April 2012 11:08 Josie Cowden
Bruzzone Family Vineyards

 

Chardonnay 2009
 
Bruzzone Family Vineyards is a small family-owned winery located in Scotts Valley. When owners Berna and John Bruzzone started planting grapes in 1999, they were already running a well-established business and had plenty of work to keep them occupied. But producing your own wine is definitely a passion that can’t be suppressed, and when it comes time for harvesting and getting juice into bottle, the excitement factor knows no bounds. I remember Berna giving me a tour of their vineyards several years ago and telling me how thrilled they are to be making such excellent Chardonnay. 
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Dining - Wine Reviews

Silver Mountain Vineyards

Tuesday, 10 April 2012 15:57 Josie Cowden
Silver Mountain Vineyards

 

Rosé of Pinot Noir 2010: Think Pink!
 
At a recent visit to Silver Mountain Vineyards’ tasting room on the Westside, I tried a Rosé of Pinot Noir 2010 Central Coast which is truly delightful. Grapes for this Rosé are sourced from Tondre Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands, Miller Hill and Muns Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains—and the wine has a bright crispiness associated with classic Rosés. 
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Dining - Wine Reviews

Sarah’s Vineyard & Wine Events

Wednesday, 04 April 2012 13:45 Josie Cowden
Sarah’s Vineyard & Wine Events

Nuits d’Enfer Merlot 2007 “Nights of Hell”

 I must admit that part of the attraction of trying this wine is the name of it. When a wine is called “Nights of Hell,” then it’s either going to set you on fire and give you a torturous night’s sleep, or it’s going to fill you with devilish passion and test your terpsichorean abilities to the max.

I am happy to report that neither was the case after taking a sip. I wanted to dance around only because the wine was so delightful.

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Dining - Wine Reviews

Bonny Doon Vineyard

Tuesday, 27 March 2012 15:30 Josie Cowden
Bonny Doon Vineyard

Contra 2009

 
It’s always exciting to find local wines in places out of town. My husband and I were in Palm Desert recently for the Paribas tennis tournament in Indian Wells—staying at one of the Marriott villas, complete with full kitchen. Although it’s fun to try the huge variety of wonderful restaurants in the area, we also like to prepare our own dinner now and again, so we stopped by Bristol Farms grocery store for something to cook out on the grill. 
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Dining - Wine Reviews

Trout Gulch Vineyards

Tuesday, 20 March 2012 14:03 Josie Cowden
Trout Gulch Vineyards

 

La Belle Petite Poulette Grenache Rosé 2010
 
I love writing about Rosé wines. They are making such a comeback from days of yesteryear, and I am thrilled about all the good ones being made locally.
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Dining - Wine Reviews

Villa del Monte Winery

Wednesday, 14 March 2012 00:00 Josie Cowden
Villa del Monte Winery

 

Pinot Noir 2010

There are times when a really good bottle of wine gets your attention. I first tasted this lovely Pinot in January at the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association’s Wine & Crab Taste Off, and it’s very impressive.  
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Dining - Wine Reviews

Pelican Ranch Winery

Wednesday, 07 March 2012 09:00 Josie Cowden
Pelican Ranch WineryChardonnay 2008

Lindwood’s Bar & Grill at Chaminade puts on a great Happy Hour. Meeting up with friends at this lovely resort is always a pleasure—especially in the more casual setting of Linwood’s. Happy Hour features all drinks for $5. And the good news is that Daylight Saving Time starts on March 11 so we can now enjoy longer days on the outdoor terrace of Chaminade.
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    Free Angela

    Political activist and UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Angela Davis commands the spotlight in a riveting new documentary. PLUS:  UCSC’s Bettina Aptheker opens up about the political upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s—and today. Angela Davis is not a human being who can be easily summed up in several sentences or paragraphs—books maybe, but, even then, capturing the political activist, scholar and author in the most comprehensive light is downright complex. That’s because Davis is an undeniably unique political creature, one who should be seen and heard to be fully absorbed and downloaded. Which is what makes Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, the new documentary about Davis and the turbulent political upheavals she faced during the late-1960s and ’70s, so inviting. In it, filmmaker Shola Lynch marks the 40th anniversary of Davis’ acquittal on charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy with a historical vérité style of filmmaking to illuminate a side of Davis few may have seen (or can recall), and captures the events that thrust the woman into one of the most fascinating orbits of notoriety and political intrigue of the 20th century.

     

    No Big Surprises

    The highly anticipated draft Environmental Impact Report for desal is finally out. Will it change anything? When scwd2, the group pursuing the proposed joint desalination plant for the Santa Cruz Water Department and Soquel Creek Water District, set up a booth at the Santa Cruz Earth Day festival in 2012, its reception was less than warm. Signature gathering for Measure P, the “right to vote” on desal ballot measure, was in full swing, as were tensions over the controversial project, which would produce up to 2.5 million gallons per day of desalinated water and cost an estimated $100 million. What were representatives of an energy-intensive desal plant doing among the recycling and conservation booths? That was the attitude Melanie Mow Schumacher, public outreach coordinator for scwd2 (pronounced “squid squared”), remembers sensing.

     

    The Maya-Ixil Move Forward

    Local nonprofit works to educate and create opportunity for indigenous communities in Guatemala In an isolated region of the Guatemala mountains called Ixil, the indigenous Maya population was devastated by a civil war between the government and leftist guerrilla factions that spanned 1960 to 1996. During that 36-year war, the Guatemalan military eradicated entire Mayan communities. In what amounted to genocide, soldiers burned Mayan farmlands and homes, raped and tortured the people, and scattered families. By the end of the war, 200,000 Mayans had been killed, 7,000 of whom were Maya-Ixil.

     

    Public Thinking

    Watsonville teens host TEDx event Santa Cruz County is no stranger to the TED brand. TED—which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design—talks have come to the area through independently organized events 10 times since 2011. This month, the gathering returns to the county with a new twist, thanks to the Watsonville Youth City Council. TEDxYouth@Watsonville, which will take place Sunday, May 19 at the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville, will feature only speakers younger than 19 years old and will traverse topics from racial stereotypes and renewable energy to traditional Mexican dance.

     

    Transoceana

    Danny Moriarty’s musical influences have been known to impact his life beyond his local rock band, Transoceana. “I went through two periods,” confesses the singer, guitarist and songwriter. “I borrowed Bono’s mullet look from the ’80s for a while, and then I dressed like I was from the ’70s and had big hair like Jimmy Page.” Bono and Page are also symbolic of Transoceana’s evolution as a band during their three years together.

     

    Cruzin’ for Inspiration

    Former resident pays homage to Santa Cruz with locally shot thesis film When he left Santa Cruz for the University of Southern California’s graduate film program in 2010, Christopher Guerrero had completed the film major at UC Santa Cruz in 2008 and worked on campus in the film and digital media department. It wasn’t until he headed south, that Guerrero began to reminisce about the coastal town. “It was really really hard when I moved to L.A., to acclimate and find friends,” he says, adding that—counter to the philosophical, conversational culture of Santa Cruz—he found nowhere in his new town where he could simply sit and talk about life with someone. “I didn’t really realize why I love [Santa Cruz] so much until it was gone.”

     

    Beck to the Future

    In celebration of Beck’s solo acoustic show at The Rio, GT explores Song Reader, the alternative rock icon’s most ambitious interactive art piece yet. Here’s an odd little paradox of the digital revolution: The more sophisticated our technology gets, the more our musical milieu begins to resemble that of a bygone era, when song ideas were passed around from musician to musician, perpetually taking on new twists. Dozens of different YouTube users might try their hand at setting somebody’s rant about cats or double rainbows to music, or you might hear the Belgian musician Gotye turning the many and varied covers of his song “Somebody That I Used to Know” into a virtual orchestra (see below).

     

    Growing Berries Without Bromide

    Researchers test a new alternative to a controversial chemical The scarecrows perched in Santa Cruz strawberry fields do little to scare away the birds, much less the insects and fungi harbored in the soil. Everything likes to eat strawberries, which makes growing them a risky business. This predicament led UC Santa Cruz professor Carol Shennan to take an unconventional approach to pest management. Nine years ago, the fatal plant disease Verticillium wilt was wiping out strawberry plants at the university farm. Chemicals hardly phase the pathogen, and Shennan saw little improvement with crop rotation, which is typically used to treat infested fields. A visiting plant pathologist from the Netherlands recommended a little-known organic technique called anaerobic soil disinfestation, and, with so few other options, Shennan decided to give it a try. 

     

    Uniting All That Has Been Separated

     

    Legal Battles Drag On

    More than a year after the 75 River St. occupation, four defendants remain embroiled in ongoing case  More than a year and a half since a group occupied the former Wells Fargo building on River Street in an act of protest, felony charges linger on for four of the original defendants and a trial may be imminent. Gabriella Ripley-Phipps, Brent Adams, Cameron Laurendeau and Franklin Alcantara were scheduled to begin trial May 13 in connection with the late 2011 protest. That trial now has been pushed back to September due to scheduling conflicts. The four face a felony charge of vandalism and a misdemeanor for trespassing.
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