We are pleased to announce two freakishly adorable additions to the current menagerie. Lady & Gent were born Thursday, March 26^th in the early evening. The tiny Lamancha goats are being bottle-fed in order to ensure maximum friendliness, and mom, Tamina, will continue to provide milk for yummy home-made cheese.

And yes, they really are that cute.

Patience.

2010 High Road will be here sooner than you think. Plus, it’s kind of your fault – shouldn’t have snatched up all that 2009 so quickly.

Rain on the Maha Estate.

These past few months watching tractors pull out the walnut trees, crawlers till the hillside, and tractors collect the ginormous rocks, just makes me more impatient to see the 3 acres of Grenache sprouting up on the Maha Estate.

Last weekend, Nicole and I took a trip to the very top of the hillside to look down on all the progress and take some photos. It’s pretty spectacular up there and (despite the workout) I can’t wait to hike it again.

Making wine is crazy hard work. 15-hour days of manual labor, plunging your hands into freezing cold bins of grapes, stomping until you feel like your legs might fall off. And let’s not forget how much beer there is to drink.

Good thing the finished product tastes so yummy.

Awesome music, insanely good food, and some pretty excellent wines – the Fall Pick Up Party was okay… I suppose.

Chef Tom Fundaro (of Villa Creek Restaurant) prepared approximately 27 coursesincluding a whole roasted pig and lamb, two kinds of paella, burrata salad, and too many other delicacies to name.

What should have been a tragic gardening moment, turned into culinary inspiration when the goats escaped from their pen and attacked the pear tree. Knocking a fruit-heavy branch down, the goats forced us to consider what to do with so many almost-ripe pears. Undaunted, JoAnn said “Let’s make jam”. It was settled.

The next day I showed up to jam. After several hours of peeling and dicing we had 10 pounds of tiny pear cubes mascerating in 5 cups of sugar, 1 cup of honey, and several lemons worth of juice. Holy hell did those pears taste good. The other 7ish pounds of pears were peeled and sliced for pickling. A vinegar concoction of JoAnn’s invention, some more honey, bay leaves and lemon rind filled the already too hot kitchen with a sweet vinegar steam (not the best feeling ever, but a kickass fragrance).

Following the recipe and direction of www.savingtheseason.com, JoAnn’s favorite canning and preserving resource, the pears for jamming were stewed for hours and hours. However, we made sure to maintain careful supervision so as not to ruin the beautiful black Le Creuset pot the pears were simmering in. The result = super duper awesome pear jam. Good on toast, even better heated up and served on vanilla ice cream, and possibly best of all – directly from the jar with nothing but a spoon.