Posts Tagged ‘#RidgeVineyards’

On A Mountain, You Can See A Vine Forever: The Long Overdue Return of VineWatch!

January 6, 2013

Back in 2010, on this blog, we engaged in what proved to be a genuinely fascinating enterprise, something we called VineWatch. Essentially, in simplest form, we selected a vine, and visually tracked its progress through the growing season. The whole thing started really as a bit of fun, but by the end of it all, I think all concerned were really and truly emotionally invested in the vine’s development, and deeply excited when harvest day finally came.

For whatever reason, however, it was an endeavor we neglected to replicate in the ensuing vintages.

But now, at this, the dawning of the new year, I am extremely happy to announce the re-inauguration of this very special series: behold VineWatch 2013!

VineWatch13_1

For the full run-down on the original VineWatch series, please click here:

http://blog.ridgewine.com/?s=vinewatch

And please stay tuned as we follow our lovely vine, Sunday by Sunday, from today onwards towards its eventual, as-of-yet-to-be-determined harvest day!

(if you’re following #RidgeVineyards on Twitter, you can track VineWatch 2013 by specifically filtering for the following hashtag: #VineWatch13)

The 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference, Brought To You In Linked Haiku! -or- #WBC12 #RidgeVineyards #Haiku

August 23, 2012

(What follows is a series of “Linked Haiku” — multiple spontaneously-composed Haiku on one  single subject. In this case, the Haiku are responses to the 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference; specifically, each Haiku is directly related to a specific agenda event at the conference)

A welcome with kind-

ness is kind; a welcome with

wine is sacrosanct!

-

Like brunch; a something

between somethings: between wine

and the writer: love.

-

Writing of wine, we don’t

write of self; rather, we write

of seeking no-self.

-

As with waterfalls,

flowing hospitality

is always holy.

-

Life of many friends,

week of many meetings, night

of many bottles.

-

Wine maker/writer;

we both prefer our glasses

be rosé-colored!

-

There are many kinds

of natural, but only

one kind of honest.

-

Do not stress the ease

of writing unless one is

sure that one writes well!

-

Love at first sight? Per-

haps, but a wine requires

more than five minutes!

-

Certainly we are

all winners. As are the win-

ners, only more so!

-

To truly dine like

a king, one must dine on the

estate of the king!

-

To write well is to

warm hearts. To write with passion;

this is to Ignite!

Ridge Vineyards is in the Loopt!

November 29, 2011

Ridge Vineyards is very pleased to announce our participation in a new and exciting event, taking place in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, November 30th, from 7-9pm. The event is being hosted by Loopt, and we will be in the house pouring some extremely delicious wines.

Not hip to Loopt yet?

Here they are, in their words:

Loopt is a social service that connects people to their community. Loopt’s mobile application and website give users the inside scoop wherever they go – tapping into local intelligence about places, making it easy to find friends and track down the best deals. Devices with Loopt include iPhone, iPod Touch and Android. Loopt has more than five million registered users in the U.S. and offers a variety of intuitive privacy controls to its users. Loopt is based in Mountain View, Calif.

Which may or may not sound like a lot of other social services out there, but Loopt puts their money where their mouths are, and this event is a perfect example. There are a lot of businesses that purport to have a local focus, but Loopt truly does; this event is being thrown specifically in recognition of their key participants and partners in the region, and we are indeed proud to be a part of the action.

If you’d like a bit more information about the event itself, you can click here.

And, if you’re going to be at this oh so very swanky event yourself, we’d love to read some tweets; just use #RidgeVineyards and #looptcasinoroyale in your posts, and we’ll look forward to gettin’ all the juicy details!

Ridge is going to Twitter … No, I mean it, I am GOING to Twitter! Meaning, I will be at Twitter/SF tomorrow!

June 6, 2011

No, I’m not going to start USING Twitter. I already DO that. And no, I’m not going to Tweet. I already do that too. No, I am GOING to Twitter! I mean, I am really GOING to Twitter!

Because Twitter is not just a state of mind. It’s a real place. A REAL place. Not a place like Atlantis, or The Death Star, or a Town Called Malice.

It’s a real place.

And I’m going there. Tomorrow. Tomorrow night, in fact. I am going to Twitter.

There is not a 140-brick Yellow Brick Road to get there. Nor is it 140 miles to get there. And it doesn’t cost $140 to gain entrance. Nor are there 140 velvet ropes to lie your way past, or 140 security guards to plead with. It is not $1.40 to park there. Nor does a small cheese pizza cost $14.0 there. And there are both less, and more, than 140 people who work there. And I am not bringing 140 bottles of wine there. And if it’s 140 degrees there, all the cheese I am bringing will melt. And the bread I am bringing will toast. I am not bringing 140 loaves of bread.

What I AM doing is going to Twitter. And I will be there from 6pm Pacific Standard Time, until 7pm Pacific Standard Time. Just one hour. Not 140 hours. Just that one hour. But during that one hour, I will be pouring some very, very, very, very good wine, for some very, very, very, very nice people. They work at Twitter. I don’t. But I am going to where they work. I am going to Twitter. Not quite like Jaqueline in Luka Bloom’s “Gone to Pablo …

With dreams and magic pictures to uncover/Now that all that earthly sadness was behind/Jaqueline’s gone to Pablo …

but sort of.

Mainly, I want you to join me. Maybe not all of you. But at least 140 of you. Yes. I want 140 of you to join me as I taste wines in Twitter.

IN Twitter.

Which, if  Twitter was an imaginary place, would be like saying I want 140 of you to join me as I taste wine with William Faulkner in Yoknapatawpha County.

Except that Twitter is a real place. All 140 square feet of it. Except it’s bigger than that. WAY bigger than that.

At 6pm (Pacific Standard Time) tomorrow night, I would really like it if you would join me in the virtual Twitter-sphere to taste some Ridge wines. 140 of you. Just open some Ridge wine, wherever you are. Just do this. And if 140 of you will do this, it would then be really great if you would post your thoughts on Twitter. And if you would do that, it would be really great if you would make sure to include #RidgeVineyards in your tweet. Because then I’ll know you were with me. All 140 of you. With me.

With me, in a land called Honalee.

Except that Honalee is imaginary. And Twitter isn’t. It’s a REAL place. Not like Narnia. Or Brooklyn. But a REAL place. And I’m going there. Tomorrow night. 6pm.

Be there, or make the world of dreams die. Like in The Neverending Story.

Where The Nothing threatens.

Put it this way, if 140 of you don’t join me in tasting Ridge wine at 6pm Pacific Standard Time tomorrow night, then Moses Gunn will cry 140 tears.

And just in case 140 of you are confused by that reference, you might recognize Moses Gunn this way …

And you don’t want HIM to cry, do you?

Of course not …

Funk Power. Over & Out. A reference that hopefully at least 140 Clash fans will recognize.

Funk Power. Over & Out.

#RidgeVineyards

Wine Bloggers Tasting, Calling All Cooks, & The Magical Oenophile Tour!

December 9, 2010

Wine Bloggers Tasting!

 

Yes! It’s time for another edition of our Wine Bloggers Tasting, and I for one am extremely excited (some might say excitable!) about this; this is the first year we’ve put this event on, and I’m positively thrilled with the results, and given that this will be the last of the four quarterly installments, I am particularly in the mood to celebrate (if for no other reason than the fact we’ll be continuing it again in 2011!) …

For anyone who has either participated in, or followed along with, one of our Wine Bloggers Tastings, you’ll know that I present wines at each event around a particular theme. This time around, I’ll be presenting two groups of wines, with two themes! (more on this below) …

When we did the third edition up at Lytton Springs  in September, we opened up the social media portion of the equation, adopted a hashtag, and encouraged some active Tweeting, to rather deliciously educational, sometimes humorous, always delightful results, so we’re going to go for the same again; meaning, if you want to play along at home, just hop on your favorite Twitter platform, and make sure to both use and track #RidgeVineyards. As to WHAT to taste (for those of you in the safety of your own homes) well, see below!

Calling All Cooks!

We launched quite a fun lil’ foody-winey campaign not too long back, which we dubbed Calling All Cooks!. The premise was fairly straightforward: send us your favorite holiday recipe that you pair with a Ridge wine; we’ll taste it, we’ll play judge and jury, and at the end, a winner will emerge. And the spoils? Not only will the winner’s recipe be featured on our website and showcased through our social media platforms, but we’ll actually bring in professional chefs to each of our tasting rooms to recreate the dish on-site, and serve it (with the Ridge wine suggested by the recipe’s author) as part of the last day of our Winter Wine Series event (Saturday, December 18th, 11am-4pm)! Fairly gourmandishly exciting, I’d say … Anyhow, as the process has unfolded, we’re now to the point where we’re down to three finalists. And as a bit of a warm-up to the main event, we’re going to have our bloggers taste the three wines that were selected as pairing companions to the finalist dishes …

The “Three I”

And that’s what we’re going to ask of YOU, our home-playing-along contestants; between 1pm and 3pm PST tomorrow, if you’ve the “Three I”  (Inventory, Imagination, Intake) at your disposal, we’re asking you to drink some Ridge, and post some thoughts about holiday pairings! Just use #RidgeVineyards and #CallingAllCooks, and our expert on-site panel will chime in with their perspectives on whatever it is that you come up with!

Remember, all you need is The Three I!

The Magical Oenophile Tour!

Okay, this is, for me, a VERY RARE concession to the Beatles obsessionists out there; in honor of the very recent anniversary of John Lennon’s very regrettable passing, I’ve copped a Beatles reference for the heading of this, the final portion of this post. Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything else, and is not likely to be repeated …

Anyhow, the point is, that the second set of wines we’ll serve at the Wine Bloggers Tasting will indeed have a theme, but no one will no what it is! And the challenge? Figure it out! That’s why it’s magical AND mysterious! Our bloggers will of course be mad with passion to discern the fiendishly subversive sub-structure that underlies my genius-madman structure, but never fear, you too, you armchair oenophiles, will have a chance to contribute your analyses; as we go through the second-set wines, we’ll be tweeting each one, and if you, by flight’s end, can guess the theme, well, I’ll find a way to get you some sort of really, really, really, really dynomite (spelling intentional, Jimmy Walker style) treat!

Again, just watch for #RidgeVineyards tweets, and play along! (Drink along?) Or, light your finger on fire? No, don’t do that …

Rather, just remember, The Three I!


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