Salted caramel ice cream churning - rich, sticky and gooey, gelato-like

Rosette of melting sugar - the beginnings of salted caramel ice cream

Caramel nut tart - Christmas 2009 dinner

Gorgeous, blue crisp sparkling 60F day in Napa Valley (from Freemark Abbey's patio, tasting 95 & 04 Sycamore Cab... So far)

Filtering 2009 Greenridge Meyer Limoncello

Ma(i)sonry in Yountville

Started with a splash of the 2008 Blackbird Arriviste Rose - strawberries with a light caramel finish. Lovely.

Maximilian Riedel

"we are not a design house - we are making fine instruments"

Riedel Tasting Seminar at Freemark Abbey

Riedel tasting seminar at Freemark Abbey with Vitis glasses

Miner

On Silverado Trail. Excellent sangiovese, whites are too sweet though. They have a fantastic display of large format bottles with their names and sizes. The biggest "real" one is the Melchior, which is equivalent to 2 cases of wine! They also have one bigger, the Bigolemofo, which is 3 cases in one gigantic bottle that's probably a real drag to pour.

best dinner so far

Was ce soir at Hiely Lucullus in Avignon. Service was amazing, food was great esp the cheese selection, wine was fantastic and local-a cotes du rhone from Ch. d'Hughes near Orange. They kept giving us little amuses bouches as well incl a bit of fried chocolate (who'da thunk?) and a house-made marshmallow which Thomas declared tasted like a peep! (yet not quite so sweet or brightly colored of course)

Sat, Sep 9, 2006 at 3:51 PM: la vaca!

Awesome new addition to Napa Valley: La Vaca & BBQ. Centrally located in Oakville, too. Super authentic Mexican food - and reasonably priced. We pshaw the Oakville Grocery lemmings!

Thomas's 40th

Ok, so we're superior lame-o's for not taking ANY (like, not a single one) photos at Thomas's 40th b'bay bash, so you will not see his alien impression with giant waving king crab legs sticking out of his stomach and screaming through the living room (plus the added comedy when the juice started dripping out of them onto the carpet), nor the faces of all of our wonderful friends who came to celebrate and made new friendships among each other, nor the pitchers and pitchers of Thomas's primo margaritas and his famous shredded pork tacos and chili lime steak. So here's just a bit of the aftermath: 3 large-format fantastic wines, perfect for an epic party like this. 2002 Ridge Geyserville, 1997 Turley Dogtown Zin, and a 1997 Turley Black-Sears Zin. Hell yes.

Tra Vigne

Our night didn't end at Freemark; as we headed back down the valley, we decided to pop in to one of our favorite local restaurants for a nightcap. We tried Martini House first, but it was claustrophobically packed. So we skipped over to Tra Vigne, where there were no seats at the bar but at least the airy ceilings and respectful distance to the tables made it much more manageable.

winningest table

Thomas gave tips to everyone he could on how to ace the ring toss after he did it, and most people who followed his coaching returned with a bottle, including more than half of our tablemates; every bottle of wine on this table was originally in the ring toss formation!

ring toss for wine!

We each got 3 chances at the ring toss. Dead simple rules: get a ring around the neck of one of the bottles and it's yours! Thomas of course came back with a fine bottle, the 1999 Cab Bosche.

Freemark Abbey

Harvest party out on the lawn.

perfect day

The sun's still shining as the Freemark Abbey Harvest Party gets rolling with fresh shucked oysters and hors d'ouvres. Gorgeous and high 70's.

nearly harvest time

On the vine at Peju.

Heitz

Vineyards out back at Heitz, where the 2001 Napa Valley cab is drinking nicely.

Bouchon

Lunch at Bouchon in Yountville on the way up the valley. A lovely bistro-style restaurant owned by Thomas Keller, who also owns French Laundry.