Tahnks for the invite, Tomato-san
Speaking of vines...would you believe I picked my last
vine-ripened tomatoes of the year just before
Xmas? I was amazed at the way the vines hung in there
this year. At Thanksgiving, they were heavy with fruit,
so I served fried green tomatoes along with everything
else, including a '78 Souverain Cab - more on that later.
Picking a bunch of the green fruit apparently allowed the
vines to concentrate their efforts on the fewer remaining
fruit. Those left behind quickly ripened. Well, quick for
December that is. They didn't have the intensity of
flavors you'd expect in August, but they were better than
any store-bought tomato. Yummm. Of course the hard freeze
we got down here wiped out all of the plants. Now it's
time to rip them out and compost everything that remains.
I've been thinking of having a "garden party". I invite
a bunch of friends over, then surprise them by letting
them play in my backyard with a 3' Bobcat and 16 hp tiller.
If they stick around, they get a good dinner and we dig
into the cellar.
As someone mentioned, it is difficult to keep california
wines long enough unless you have a dedicated cellar.
Especially with the long tomato growing season here
(San Jose), it would a very rare home that has anyplace
cool enough for long-term storage. I considered digging
an underground cellar, but the above-ground electric
refrigerator seemed more practical. I've had it for about
ten years now, and can't recommend it too highly.
The cellar now contains a fairly good selection of zins
from Ridge, Ravenswood, Rosenblum, Peachy Canyon, and a few
others. I never can remember which is the fourth R. I guess
we could count (and drink!) Ravenswood twice. The '84s and
'85s are all gone. BooHoo! There's a big dent in '86 and '87.
Best wine I've had in the last month:
Quinta da Aveleira 1974 Port - don't bother looking it up.
You'll never find it - but feel free to prove me wrong.
Low sugar for a port, big spicy peppery finish, preceded by a
diverse range of fruit and carmel flavors. Actually it's not
certain to be a '74. It was pulled from about that deep in the
stack of bottles, but they don't actually bother to date the
individual bottles at this tiny winery in Tavora.
-zm
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