I hadn’t heard from my cool neighbor, Syed, in a while. On Monday mornings, whoever gets to the curb first brings each other’s garbage and recycling bins up to the respective garages. Today, I did run into him outside, and he asked me if I wanted some lemons. Turns out that his girlfriend, Karen, who works at the San Francisco Chronicle, has a colleague with a citrus tree, and was sharing the bounty. Karen asked Syed if Kathy and I might like some. Hell yeah!
To “Lemon Lady” down our street: “Screw you, Grandma!” But I mean that with all love and respect. See you at the Neighborhood Watch meeting!
Oh, and then, after not hearing from Syed for a week and a half, he phones within an hour to ask if we want/need any eggs from his chickens!
It is beautifully crazy where we live in Oakley: eggs and lemons for the asking, and the Farmers Market in neighboring Brentwood set to open this coming Saturday.
Kathy had a rare Friday off last week, and we gassed up the Lisa Marie for a wine jaunt eastward into the Central Valley, Lodi in particular. It had been over a year since we’d visited, and we were so impressed with the burg’s transformation from jug-wine/Gallo serfdom to “I’m Doug. Solamente Doug, and I’m outta heeeeeere.” (Apologies to “The State” comedy troupe) independence.
Now, you pay your toll at the Antioch Bridge, and then cruise along the Delta levees. But a right turn onto Highway 12 will take you, 25 minutes later into the gift of the Lodi. State Route 12 will serve as a cool gateway to more than a couple of well-appointed tasting rooms on its periphery. That’s pretty much what we did last year on our 2011 expeditionary mission.
The winery map published by the local wine “alliance” is generally excellent (take note, Santa Cruz), and even allowing for new cross-street construction and nomenclature thereof, Kath and I ran into some wonderful tasting surprises.
OK, woulda thunk that the giant industrial plant that is “Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi,” available in magni at a Walgreens near you, would have a tasting room pouring varietally bottled juice available nowhere else? Very strange to taste a Port-style blend vinted from true Portuguese grape varieties and poured from a bottle enfolded in an elegant label heretofore unseen by us. And then one goes back to the car, and sees shift change at the plant: an amalgam of Homer Simpson chez nuke reactor, and every “show your badge” joint you may or may not have toiled in.
But we were very glad we stopped in to Woodbridge; a true, welcome, surprise.
So, Cycles Gladiator Winery down the street from Woodbridge. Crazy story, crazy juice. CG takes its name from a Belle Époque bicycle poster whose trademark expired, so now adorns the Cycles Gladiator bottling, courtesy public domain. CG is under the umbrella of Hahn, a Central Coast winery that Kath and I had visited 15 years ago in the Santa Lucia Highlands down Monterey way. Smith & Hook is another of their labels, and pourer Dennis was hooking us up with all of the above. Apparently there is even a “Banned in Alabama” bottling from Cycles, because the state legislature there forbade the perceived nudity from the bike poster to be used on the label. Heaven forbid what was actually in the bottle, huh?
Their landlord is old-skool, as may be inferred from the faded sign. But one must give props to the cornerstone. Barkeep, a grape brandy for everyone in the house!
A hundred are afraid to do it; one actually does it.
Talk soon.
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