A white Christmas We wake up this morning only to see that it snowed during the night. 3" in Height, not in length or in width, in height!! Un Noel blanc Nous nous sommes réveillés ce matin pour découvrir qu'il avait neigé toute la nuit. A peu près 8cm de neige partout, pas en longueur […]

Merry Christmas From CHV We want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of our heart! That's no Bla-Bla, but this year has been very interesting and we feel like we're on the top of the world... Joyeux Noel, Nous voulons vous souhaiter un Joyeux Noel de tout notre coeur! Ce n'est pas […]

Meatballs and Pasta: Wine: Kepe Garnacha 2016 - Bold, dry, medium tannins, and medium acidity. Food Pairing: Because the wine is bold and has acidity, it is good with tomatoes, pasta and meat...So Gina did pasta with meat balls and tomatos. Pretty cool.   Pâtes avec des boulettes de viande hachée. Vin: Kepe Garnacha 2016 […]

Beef Shanks with CHV Sangiovese Wine: Our Sangiovese 2016 is dry, medium-high body, high alcohol and high acidity, so it can take big food like stew, food with lots of substance, mushroom, tomatoes, onions and such. Food Pairing: Gina is making a beef shank that is aromatic and have all the characteristics listing above...and it […]

A snake in the garden... We had the surprise to hear Diva barking...at a rattlesnake which was doing a racket. We had rattlesnake before and Diva always barks at them, so what's wrong with this picture? First, we are in December and it is cold, like in the mid thirties...Snake are supposed to be sleeping […]

Wine Festival in Phoenix I went to the "Wine on The Grotto" festival in Phoenix at the Arizona Center downtown, last weekend. Gina had to stay to take care of the animals. I stayed at Tom's. There were only 10 wineries represented, but still quite a good audience. Tom helped a lot during those 2 […]

Thanksgiving at CHV As appetizers, we had pepperoncini peppers stuffed with blue cheese, brioche with goat cheese camembert and rhubarb jelly, brioche toasts with shrimps and eggs, with Mumm's champagne. For the main dish, turkey legs rolled with chard, and a salad of greens with broccoli, beans and beets, cranberry sauce, and gravy, served with […]

Food and Wine Pairing Class from CHV Gina and I did a Food and Wine Pairing class with all our 6 wines and some bites to match them at the Portal Café. Thank you to Mitch and the new chef at Portal Café for hosting and cooking the food. There were about 20 people and […]

Training on car opening: Portal Fire Department had a training with Rodeo Fire Department on how to open a car in an accident. They got new toys (tools) and we got to play with them all morning on old cars. Fun!   Formation sur comment ouvrir une voiture: Le département des pompiers de Portal a […]

It is cold out there... We might be still in fall, it is already colder than it was last winter. It went down to 26°F last night, just for an hour but still, this is cold. Very Cold. And it was 28°F the night before, and it'll be 24°F tonight and tomorrow night. They said […]