It’s rather difficult to pair wine with Indian food. Typically, Indian people do not drink wine with their food. Those wonderful hot and spicy dishes need the cooling flavors of lassi, chai—or just plain water. But friends had invited my husband and I to an authentic Indian meal at their home for 10 people cooked by a lady from Goa on the west coast of India, so I searched for something light to go with the food—and Aptos Vineyard’s Chardonnay ($17 from DeLuxe Foods of Aptos) seemed like just the ticket. It’s an uncomplicated wine with a fruity palate—and with just the sort of apples and pears aroma needed for a zesty Goan feast. It’s certainly not the “buttery” Chardonnay that many wine tasters expect—being much more crisp and perky.Wine Reviews
Dining -
Wine Reviews
It’s rather difficult to pair wine with Indian food. Typically, Indian people do not drink wine with their food. Those wonderful hot and spicy dishes need the cooling flavors of lassi, chai—or just plain water. But friends had invited my husband and I to an authentic Indian meal at their home for 10 people cooked by a lady from Goa on the west coast of India, so I searched for something light to go with the food—and Aptos Vineyard’s Chardonnay ($17 from DeLuxe Foods of Aptos) seemed like just the ticket. It’s an uncomplicated wine with a fruity palate—and with just the sort of apples and pears aroma needed for a zesty Goan feast. It’s certainly not the “buttery” Chardonnay that many wine tasters expect—being much more crisp and perky.
Read more...
Aptos Vineyard Chardonnay 2006
It’s rather difficult to pair wine with Indian food. Typically, Indian people do not drink wine with their food. Those wonderful hot and spicy dishes need the cooling flavors of lassi, chai—or just plain water. But friends had invited my husband and I to an authentic Indian meal at their home for 10 people cooked by a lady from Goa on the west coast of India, so I searched for something light to go with the food—and Aptos Vineyard’s Chardonnay ($17 from DeLuxe Foods of Aptos) seemed like just the ticket. It’s an uncomplicated wine with a fruity palate—and with just the sort of apples and pears aroma needed for a zesty Goan feast. It’s certainly not the “buttery” Chardonnay that many wine tasters expect—being much more crisp and perky.
Dining -
Wine Reviews
Read more...
Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards Syrah 2006
Plus Upcoming Wine Events
It took me ages to choose a bottle of Syrah for one of Ma Maison’s Brown Bag dinners. The choices from our local wineries are many. Finally, I plumped for a bottle of Savannah-Chanelle 2006 Monterey County—Coast View Vineyard ($21). I have visited Savannah-Chanelle dozens of times and have always been impressed with their wines. They do a splendid job of turning out excellent varietals—in large part thanks to their winemaker Tony Craig. Also, as a judge for the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers commercial wine competition last year, I know that this particular wine won a well-deserved silver medal with 86 points.
Dining -
Wine Reviews
Read more...
Zayante Vineyard Zinfandel 2007
Plus Upcoming Wine Events
A couple of friends from Barcelona invited me and my husband and some other people over for paella. They are here for a few weeks and promised they would cook this delicious Spanish dish for me a few times during their stay. Since they were preparing two different kinds of paella—a typical shellfish one and another of chicken and sausage—I knew I would be safe taking a bottle of Zayante Vineyard Zinfandel for us to share. Zayante’s beautiful wines are all estate grown and bottled—and reasonably priced as well. This particular Zin is a mere $13.99 at New Leaf.
Dining -
Wine Reviews
Read more...
Roudon-Smith Winery Cabernet Franc 2006
Plus Upcoming Wine Events
Although I had a huge dose of jet lag, having been back home from a month in Europe for a matter of hours, I hightailed it out to Roudon-Smith Winery on a cold and rainy Saturday in December. After all, it was their annual holiday event of wine and chocolate tasting, and—chocoholic that I am—I did not want to miss out on some delicious chocolaty samplings with some of my favorite wines.
My husband was already at the winery when I arrived—going straight there from a meeting—and standing under the redwoods to save me a parking space. Roudon-Smith is in a bucolic setting a couple of miles down Bean Creek Road in Scotts Valley. It’s owned and operated by Annette and David Hunt and their partner Al Drewke. All of them were there to greet us and chat about wine— and the inclement weather.
Dining -
Wine Reviews
There’s an old British song that goes: “Have some Madeira, m’dear. You really have nothing to fear.”
Read more...
Quinta Cruz 2008 Verdelho
There’s an old British song that goes: “Have some Madeira, m’dear. You really have nothing to fear.”
This song came to mind when I bought a bottle of Quinta Cruz Verdelho. The Verdelho grape, like the famous Madeira, both come from Portugal. Verdelho has been cultivated since about the 1400s in a region of Portugal that makes dry wine—and is also one of the grapes used in the making of Madeira.
It takes somebody like Jeff Emery, a master winemaker better known with his other label – Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard—to want to make something really different. He most certainly likes the challenge of steering away from the usual – preferring to make a wine that’s a step or two from the mainstream—and he started the Quinta Cruz label with this goal in mind.
Page 35 of 39
Share this on your social networks
Share this
- North Pacific String Band
- Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor?
- Peace in the Middle East
- The Price of Safety
- Town Hall with Assemblymember Mark Stone
- Santa Cruz Calendar
- Muscle-Bound
- Inconvenient Truthers
- Santa Cruz Movie Times
- CYNDI
- Dancing Creek Winery
- From The Editor
- Field to Vase
- Stranger than Fiction
- Mark Twang
- Good Morning Maui
CYNDI
On the eve of Cyndi Lauper’s Mountain Winery gig, we dissect the woman, the icon, the creative beast. Plus: Her thoughts on the music industry, equal rights and those sparkling ‘Kinky Boots’ Few performers possess the kind of fierce, she-bopping tenacity Cyndi Lauper has become famous for. Equal parts free spirit, civil rights activist and Grammy-winner, Lauper is one of the few creative artists able to successfully marry her cutting-edge verve with a heart-of-gold panache. It certainly has helped fuel the remarkable career resurgence she has been experiencing lately.
Field to Vase
Open house provides opportunity for residents to meet their local flower growers Valentine’s Day is a high point of the year for those in the cut flower business. So when, one year in the late ’90s, the bouquet-riddled holiday failed to deliver for Kitayama Brothers Farms, the family behind the decades-old rose-growing business knew something was wrong. “It was the writing on the wall,” recalls Stuart Kitayama, operations manager for the Watsonville-based company. “Those of us who had been hoping things would just get better finally said ‘it’s time to change.’”
The Price of Safety
The city's proposed budget addresses public safety needs The City of Santa Cruz’s pocketbook has come a long way since 2009, when an $8 million shortfall loomed. According to City Manager Martin Bernal, the proposed general fund budget for 2013-2014 is healthier than it has been since the beginning of The Great Recession in 2008. Armed with this returning stability, the proposal puts one of the community's top concerns—public safety—front and center.
North Pacific String Band
Jeff Wilson, who plays banjo for North Pacific String Band, loves being part of original music experiences. “What I like about the music we play is that it’s fairly unique and kind of hard to put your finger on,” Wilson says. “We’re not just trying to do bluegrass or country or folk. It’s a mixture of those things and we try to add in a lot of musicality to all of that.” Originality and musicality aren’t ideas which are limited to the band’s exploits either.
Peace in the Middle East
New dance-concert explores Palestinian-Israeli conflict Inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, local choreographer Karl Schaffer’s “Mosaic” is a dance-concert featuring Jewish Diaspora and Arab music from the women’s choral group Zambra, singer Fattah Abbou and a troupe of local dancers. In between rehearsals for the show, which runs June 21-22 at Motion Pacific, Schaffer shared the story behind its creation.
Muscle-Bound
Valiant cast battles loud, ugly action for the soul of 'Man of Steel' Early in Man of Steel, fourth-grader Clark, the boy who will be Superman, is cowering in a broom closet at school, eyes screwed shut, hands clapped over his ears. He can't control his super powers: his X-ray vision shows him the skulls and skeletons under everyone's flesh; unfiltered noise—dogs, traffic, heartbeats—assault him from all sides. Rushing to school, his mom kneels outside the door and asks what's wrong.
The Plug Bug & Corbin Dunn
Mechanic, programmer, acrobat, builder, tinkerer. Corbin Dunn's 1969 Volkswagen Beetle is a fully electric vehicle. It has an electric motor powered by 48 stacked squares of Lithium-ion battery cells under the hood in place of the 50 horsepower gas engine that it was built with. He calls it, affectionately, “the Plug Bug.” Dunn, who was born in Hawaii, raised in Corralitos, and now lives in a large, old A-frame house near the summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is a 35-year-old programmer for Apple in Cupertino, where he helped develop the iPhone and works on the framework for the Macintosh operating system. But his aptitude for intricate technical work is not limited to computers. Dunn is a tinkerer.
Making the Grade
The quest to identify sources of high levels of bacteria at Cowell Beach continues With straight As on Heal the Bay’s annual “beach report card” for 10 out of 13 Santa Cruz County beaches—Main Beach, Seabright, and even Cowell Beach at the Stairs, to name a few—it would seem that Santa Cruz boasts a high coastal GPA. But in recent years, one Santa Cruz beach just can’t seem to pass: Cowell Beach west of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.
Flag Day, Father’s Day and Chiron
Another week of complex planetary energies falling to Earth. Mars interacts with Pluto (inconjunct), Uranus (sextile) and Chiron (square, challenge, ouch!). We won’t know how to comprise, we’ll want to be friends but our hurts will challenge that desire.
To Arm or Disarm?
While gun sales soar nationally, a group of musicians fundraise for a local gun buy-back In the wake of high-profile incidents of gun violence—from the Sandy Hook school shooting last December to the fatal shooting of two Santa Cruz police officers three months ago—the debate over gun ownership in America centers on one question as it rages on: Do guns make us safer or do they make our lives more dangerous?
Latest Comments
Good Morning Maui
Goodness, righteousness, virtuousness and fairness are some of the four-score English words that attempt to describe the Hawaiian essence of pono, whose use in the state motto translates to “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”
The Power of Conversation
Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.
Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor?
He's a patriot. Anyone who stands up for the rights that we stand for as a country, that is real democracy. That would be in my book—somebody who is a patriot. Leah WeissSanta Cruz | Therapist
Best of Santa Cruz County
The 2013 Santa Cruz County Readers' Poll and Critics’ Picks It’s our biggest issue of the year, and in it, your votes—more than 6,500 of them—determined the winners of The Best of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. New to the long list of local restaurants, shops and other notables that captured your interest: Best Beer Selection, Best Locally Owned Business, Best Customer Service and Best Marijuana Dispensary. In the meantime, many readers were ever so chatty online about potential new categories. Some of the suggestions that stood out: Best Teen Program and Best Web Design/Designer. But what about: Dog Park, Church, Hotel, Local Farm, Therapist (I second that!) or Sports Bar—not to be confused with Bra. Our favorite suggestion: Best Act of Kindness—one reader noted Café Gratitude and the free meals it offered to the Santa Cruz Police Department in the aftermath of recent crimes. Perhaps some of these can be woven into next year’s ballot, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following pages and take note of our Critics’ Picks, too, beginning on page 91. A big thanks for voting—and for reading—and an even bigger congratulations to all of the winners. Enjoy. -Greg Archer, EditorBest of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll INDEX | Shops | Food & Drink | Arts & Entertainment | Health & Fitness | Professionals | The Rest |
Dancing Creek Winery
At the Pinot Paradise event back in March, I tasted some very good Pinots from the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Dancing Creek Winery’s 2009 Pinot ($27) was one of them. This plummy dark brew, made from grapes grown in Corralitos, has delicious flavors of pomegranate, prosciutto, dried cherries, and mint julep.
A Very Fine House
Adjacent to the front door, the long, clean wooden bar is surrounded by pumpkin-colored stools. At the entrance to the dining rooms, there is a new low-slung cafe door hung in the wood-covered arch. Where there once was a stage, stocky wooden tables are neatly arranged perpendicularly on a new tile floor, each set with square white plates and burnt orange cloth napkins.
Exposed
David Cay Johnston’s new book explains how big companies rob us blind In his late teens David Cay Johnston started to ask questions. “Why do we have these guys in uniforms with guns driving around in cars all day?” “Why is the Santa Cruz County Courthouse being built in such an unusual shape?” He wrote an article, while still living in his hometown of Santa Cruz, proving that the off-kilter courthouse building, which officials had promised would save money, actually cost more than a conventional building.
What’s your secret to avoiding the summer swarms?