To be a little wine. 24gal.

We used her new olive tray.

This episode was a long time coming. Gary and I had tried to align our schedules for a pretty long time but never were able to make it work. I’m glad that we finally did. The episode has a few hundred comments over on the show’s blog and I’m happy that I’ve been able to respond to nearly every single one.

The vineyards on Franklin Hill. Credit: Eliza.

Eliza, my mother-in-law Carla and I took a drive last week to visit a few wineries along the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail. Due to winter hours, a long lunch, and some shopping – we only got to two wineries along the trail.

The first winery was Amoré in Nazareth, Pa. Although having recently been through a fire that ripped through their tasting room – they were still open for business. One of the things I enjoyed the most about Amoré, besides their decent selection of wines, was that they offered crackers, pretzels, and even chocolate with some of them. During the summer months, we were told, they sometimes have cheese too. More wineries should do this. Although some do have crackers it is rare that they are of any quality or that they have other things available.

The second winery was Franklin Hill in Bangor, Pa. and my favorite of the day. Franklin Hill Winery sits far back off the road, nearly a half mile I’d say, and was recently renovated. This was my favorite of the day because we got a tour and got to meet the woman winemaker while she was working on some of their wines. Everyone there was very free with information when I asked questions about winemaking and the wines were good too.

We ended up coming home with a few bottles of wine. One thing I enjoy about buying wine directly from the wineries is that you have a chance to taste the wines before you purchase any. This way when you’re home and wondering what wine to have – you know exactly what each of them tastes like.

Hopefully we’ll find time this year to get to the other seven wineries along the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail.

Shopping list

1. Milk
2. Eggs
3. Inexpensive wines from all over the world
4. Bread
5. Cheez-Its

It is going to be a nice evening.

A late lunch with a few friends on a hot Thursday.

I’d be remiss not to mention that Carbondale, Pennsylvania is having a Wine & Music Festival on June 20, 2009. Mayor Justin Taylor, who is pretty active on Facebook, created a Facebook group for the event. (Not sure why he didn’t chose to create an event on Facebook, rather than a group, but at least he is using Facebook.)

Eliza and I really enjoy the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen, NY. Huge tents housing hundreds of local wineries, brewers, local music talent, food, and more. The entrance fee, which I believe is $40 for two days, is more than worth it.

The Carbondale Wine & Music Festival’s entrance fee is far less expensive (though it is only one day and, I assume, much smaller) at $10. Steamtown, a national park in Scranton for trains, is sending a train to Carbondale for those in Scranton that would like to take the train. That price is $25. I’m half-tempted to drive to Scranton just to take the train ride from Scranton to Carbondale.

I’m happy that Carbondale is having such an event and I hope it goes really well for the city. I continue to have high hopes that Carbondale can dig itself out of its current state and, in some ways, return to what it was so many years ago (before my time). One way we can all help is by supporting local business, building businesses in town rather than out, going to events like these and trying to help promote them, and generally keeping your part of town clean.

Oh, and I’m not going to bring up Wingfest 2008. Because that won’t happen in Carbondale, right?

I think I should start featuring a “you may not have seen this video” video here on my site each and every day.  You see, it isn’t always the most popular videos that are worthy of attention. Yeah, I think I’ll do exactly that.

Source: Gary Vaynerchuk at Threadless on Viddler.

A very good smelling spill. The iPhone oddity emerges again!

Taken July 18, 2008 – The windows at the Seneca Harbor Wine Center.

There is a lot of wine at Wine Library.

Simultaneously testing out cross posting to my site, Flickr, and now Brightkite (just for fun) and showing off my wine barrel trash can.

Here are Gary’s television appearances, in order of their original airing (the list), starting with Mad Money with Jim Cramer from May 13, 2008.

Choose any video by clicking the title and that will reload the player.

1. Late Night with Conan O’Brien – August 1, 2007. #
2. The Ellen Degeneres Show – September 20, 2007. #
3. The Ellen Degeneres Show (recap) – September 21, 2007. #
4. ABCNews – Nightline – October 4, 2007. #
5. The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch- May 7, 2008. #
6. Late Night with Conan O’Brien – May 12, 2008. #
7. Mad Money with Jim Cramer – May 13, 2008. #

If you would like to embed any of these videos on your site, click the # (pound) symbol to go to their respective URLs to get the HTML embed code. If you need help with this task, you may ask in the comments of this post.

Notable Web videos

Gary has given many talks, speeches, and keynotes. I’m adding these to the list of television appearances because I believe some of these deserve a mention.

• Authors@Google: Gary Vaynerchuk, April 3, 2008

Gary in the press

Main stream media has not ignored Gary’s success either. Here is a small collection of press that Gary has received in newspapers, magazines, etc.

• NYMag: Does Your Wine Taste Like Stinky Socks Dipped in Cheese? – May 20, 2007
• Los Angeles Times: Wine Library TV: Robert Parker for a new generation? – March 12, 2008

Gary’s mission to “Change the wine world” is definitely underway.  You can help him by spreading the word about Wine Library TV, but more importantly Gary wants everyone to open up and try new things.  Don’t be afraid to go out of your comfort zone and enjoy wines that you’ve never had before.

Thanks for all of your hard work Gary.

If you have any links to add to this, please comment.

Note: This page to be continuously updated. Last update: May 19, 2008 – 12:13pm EST.

My friend Gary Vaynerchuk, who you may know as the host of WineLibrary TV, is now a published author and you can pre-order his book Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World on Amazon.

Gary’s book is currently hovering at number 101, which will probably change before I even publish this post, on Amazon’s rankings list.

Wondering what wines to choose this year?  Gary’s book should help, in a unique way.

“Every wine identified in the book represents a lesson in a glass, complete with the technical notes, availability, and the story behind the vintage and flavors… all brought to life as only Gary knows how!”

I’m looking forward to getting my pre-ordered copy so that I can have the man himself sign it for me.

Source: About Gary’s first book.
Buy: Buy now from Amazon! 

Mmm.

Neat idea.

(Source: TheDieline.com: The Leading Package Design Blog: Innovation in Wine Labels)

On Friday I had gone to a friend’s house before heading to a concert with some friends (photo and video). For whatever reason the bandwidth had been horrible and I was unable to publish the featured video for two days in a row (they got saved as drafts ?).

The reason I’m putting this out here as public knowledge is because I wanted to say sorry to the two users that would have gotten much more exposure for their videos if I hadn’t messed up (I’ve messaged them). So I’m sorry to realmacsoftware who shared their RapidWeaver videos with the Viddler community in order to promote their product. Definitely take the time to view the RapidWeaver Quick Start Guide and take a look at their software as it seems very well thought-out and intuitive. I plan on downloading a trial and giving it a try this week. I’m also sorry to entr200 who gave us all a great tip on how to get a wine cork out of a bottle.

I’m hoping to setup a slightly better system where I’m 24 hours ahead of the game so that I am able to plan for outages, vacations, and even have Rob feature a few videos when I’m not around.

Be sure to subscribe to the Viddler blog so that you can see what videos are being featured. I’m really proud of all the great content that the Viddler community is sharing on a daily basis.

I can has cramp

Last week was the normal exercise and workout activities but near the end of the week Chris and I, via my good friend Larry, discovered HIIT running. The photo on your right is the result of my first HIIT session wherein I got a cramp and Chris nearly showed his lunchables. HIIT running is addictive and a little bit insane. Once you’ve done it and the pain along with the throbbing head veins subside, you crave it. You are constantly thinking about your next session and how you need to add another cycle. Like I said, insane.

This weekend we hit a few wineries, as we tend to love doing so much, and enjoyed a massive amount of great food and wine. Picnics in vineyards people! Naturally I thought I’d overdone it. Come to find out I didn’t gain an ounce over the weekend. So just like last week I’m sittin’ pretty at 185.

Yesterday was our third round of HIIT running. However, since Chris and I are insane (as mentioned before), we decided to go to the gym for biceps, triceps, and forearm workouts before heading out to play basketball for a few more hours. But boy did it feel good (at the time). This morning I’m a little sore and a few of my joints are cursing me – but overall I’m in good shape.

I’m looking forward to making this a great week to end the first of many years on the diet.

Not that fall is a bad thing since Pennsylvania has some of the prettiest falls I’ve seen anywhere, I just hate seeing summer fade into fall because that means winter is coming.

Saturday

Ethan almost smiling

On Saturday we went to a “Cars” party at my sister Nettie’s house. She invited a few parents and their children – oh and Eliza and I too but we don’t have any children besides our cats who never saw Cars and don’t like cake so they weren’t invited.

It is definitely nice to go to a party full of kids every now and then. Being able to watch as kids make a mess of their clothes, tear lighting fixtures out of the ground, drink chlorinated water, complain that another kid “touched their hamburger”, and tip over every cup that contains liquid within arms reach – and then getting in our car and driving away without one of our own is sort of liberating. Though I love kids and hope to have a few of my own one day.

Lightning McQueen cake

Tyler likes carrots

Isabelle

Boys watch sub

All the kids seemed to have a great time

We enjoyed their company, had a small bite to eat, and were on our way to Ivan and Andrea’s for the rest of the weekend where we had a great time with Ivan, Andrea, Ava, Giana, and Chris (yes, the very same people we camped with at Keenlake).

Once we arrived Andrea prepared a really great dinner. After dinner we watched a few episodes of Lost to get in the mood for Season 3 which begins on the first Wednesday in October.

Sunday

Andrea and Eliza make breakfast

Andrea and Eliza made breakfast for a pretty large crew being that some guests stopped by early to drop off Ava. My guess is that including children there was about 10 of us – so they did a great job making breakfast for everyone. I’m sure Chris will mention the scrapple.

After breakfast Ivan, Chris, Ava, and I headed for the river. We started our trip down river at Jim Thorpe and rafted down to Bowmanstown. We spent about two and a half hours on the river total hitting about a dozen or so rapids. Being only a class 2 at best, we had a good time without risking life and limb and being able to take Ava with us. Rafting really solidified to me how beautiful a state Pennsylvania is. Living here really has made me take that fact for granted. Although a shame that we don’t have any photos of the event, I really didn’t want to chance ruining one of our digital cameras, so you will have to live without them.

After rafting (and Chris forgetting his keys in the car about 10 miles up river and needing to call AAA to unlock the doors), we headed to Galen Glen winery for a tasting. Some of the wines were really good – though I thought they tasted a bit young. Eliza and I ended up making three selections and getting a bottle of each. I think I might end up writing up the Silver Vidal Blanc we got, as I think that it had the most potential out of any of the wines I tasted (we were allowed six).

Galen Glen panorama – [zoom in]

I managed to shoot a pretty slick panorama that I used Photoshop’s photomerge to stitch together. I have to remember to do more of these when we go places, as I think it gives you a fairly good feel for the area. Beautiful rolling hills each filled with grape vines that reach about as far as the eye can see. Beyond that maple trees that extend until the curvature of the Earth takes over. Great location.

Group photo at Galen Glen winery
Eliza, Colin, Chris, Ivan, Andrea, Giana, and Ava

After downing a bottle of wine while overlooking the scenic vista, we headed to Platz’s for dinner. We’ve gone here twice so far and I really like the feel of the place. A homemade menu with a pub feel. I had crab cakes that made me extremely full.

I really can’t say enough about having great weather in the middle of September on a weekend filled with friends and being outdoors. I suppose you could say that this weekend would represent my favorite types of weekends. I’m definitely going to miss the summer, but hopefully we can figure out how to make some even better weekends in the fall and winter to come.

Update: Eliza posted a few more photos from the weekend.

[tags]weekend, vacation, summer, wine, winery, galen glen, jim thorpe, rafting, photos, kids, rosarios, chris fehnel, colin devroe, eliza devroe, kids, party, cars, platz’s, vineyard, food, ivan, andrea, ava, giana, ethan[/tags]

May 19th

12:00pm – Just finishing up on some work before we head out. We’re hoping to leave around 3:00pm from here, so we’ll see how that goes.

7:30pm – We left on time, and had a nice drive up. We stopped at a Wendy’s to get some energy before arriving at our hotel. Some guy, clearly on crack, checked us in. We’re probably going to watch the rest of the Cavalier’s and Piston’s game before finding something to do.

11:30pm – Watched the Pistons beat the Cavs (boo), and watching the rest of the Maverick’s game before hitting the hay. Tomorrow, the vineyards.

May 20th

8:00am – The Mavericks should have won, but as we all know nothing comes easy in the playoffs this year.

We’re heading out to breakfast somewhere, then hitting our first vineyard around 10:30 I’d think. I’ll try to take as many notes about each vineyard while we are here and either incorporate them into this post, or create a post all on Seneca Lake. Something I wish that I had done the last time when we came up and went to Cayuga.

May 21st

1:00am – Not having Internet access makes it much harder to do updates, but at least we’re having a great time here. We got to at least 7 vineyards today, and ended up buying around 3 cases (12 bottles each). The main regret both Eliza and I had from last year was that we didn’t buy enough wine – hopefully we won’t say the same thing this year.

Although the weather forecast was supposed to be cold and rain all day, it was pretty nice out and never rained on us, so we were all pretty happy that we didn’t have to run from the buildings to the car every time.

May 22nd

9:00am – We’re back home. As I said before, not having Internet (and having what seemed like no cafés with such), makes it pretty much impossible to do good live blogging.

I think I am going to end up writing a new post on what I thought of this trip, and what we did, and so on – but here are some pictures until then.

[tags]vacation, wine, finger lakes, new york, wendy’s[/tags]