Search

It's an Exciting World

The life and times of David Geisert

Open Search
Category

Wine

Wine Train

Stephanie, Adam, and I went on the Napa wine train that goes from Napa City to St. Helena.  We got there a little early and decided to walk around the city for a bit after checking in for the train.  We found a coffee shop and a charcuterie, that we stopped by again later.

We then went to the train and got on.  The train was only half full at 15 of 30 spots taken.  We got a nice breakfast on the way to the first winery, Domaine Chandon.  They were a typical winery, and we got a nice tasting of some sparkling wine.  It was a place we could go hang out during a work remote day, as they had a massive patio.  On the way to the second winery we got a soup and salad.  The second winery, Hall, was our favorite of the three.  They were clearly about creating a good place to be, and it is a place we might go to hang out.  The only issue being that it requires a membership to be in their hanging out area.  They had art all around, with the most icon piece being a giant silver bunny in the front called ‘Bunny Fufu.’  Hall also had the best wine of the trip, by general unanimous agreement, 2015 hall terra secca cabernet sauvignon.  We had a nice dinner on the way to the third and final winery, Inglenook.  They had a lot of interesting old things: books, clothes, mechanical objects.   They had also built a cave into to house their wines as they aged.  We took the train back to Napa and had a nice desert.  The wine and food was generally great.  A few of the dishes and a few of the wines were fantastic.

We then went back to the charcuterie, and Adam got some food for Saturday.  We went to Grace’s Table for dinner as it was recommended by Michelin.  Adam drove us back and we went right to bed.

0

Rabbit’s Foot Meadery

Steph and I met up with Tina, Adan, Lee, Kerry, Andrew, Candice, and others at Rabbit’s Foot Meadery.  I had a sip of one of the drinks and it was decent.  I think I got Lee curious about the product we were making and hope to get his feedback on it.  The atmosphere of the place was nice, although a little loud.  Since we went in the middle of the day it wasn’t terribly crowded, but it wasn’t empty by any means.  The place was rather nice, and even though I’m not drinking anymore, I wouldn’t mind going back to hang out there.

IMG_0874 IMG_0875 IMG_0876

0

Los Charros and Jeremy’s

Steph and I went to dinner at Los Charros with Jeremy, Andrew, and Lindsay.  I biked there and it took about 50 minutes.  I nearly got hit by a guy that came flying off the interstate at about 70 mph onto a 35 mph road, right through the crosswalk that I was in.  Lindsay was a little late, so the rest of us all ordered beforehand and got the wet burritos.  They were absolutely massive, at least 50% larger than the average human stomach.  Being Americans and the burritos being delicious we promptly ate the entire thing.  After dinner we stopped by Tea Era for some boba.

We then went to Jeremy’s where they tested out some wine aerators.  I had a bit of trouble poring one of them as it splashed everywhere when going through the aerator.  We talked about all sorts of things and had a relaxing time.

0

Steph’s Bday Dinner

Steph’s birthday was yesterday and she didn’t want to go out and do anything big, so we stayed in and had dinner at her place.  I went to Oren’s Hummus to pick up some food, and got the vegetarian’s delight and a falafel wrap with some labane and hummus.  I met her at her place when she got back from martial arts.  The food was really tasty.  She broke out some good sake and that surprisingly complimented the meal well.  After eating we watched David play through some of a Far Cry spinoff game.  It was over the top and hilarious.

0

Friday At PAX

Friday was overwhelming at PAX.  I’m not a big fan of crowds, and PAX seems to be nothing but crowds.  I was able to handle it for a while, and did enjoy the indie mega booth.  There are a good number of games that look very interesting.  It is amazing to see the influence Clash of Clans and MineCraft have had on the games that indie developers are making.  There weren’t too many original projects, but a lot of them did build well on top of well defined mechanics.  The originality was certainly there.

I really liked the Pixel Junk Inc. game that Steph tried out, as well as Cannon Brawl.

I competed in the Goldeneye tournament and had a disappointing first round knockout.  I’m sure I could have made it to the final 4 match, but the disparity in skill level made it more of a hunt than a match.  The settings were also quite strange as the organizer had never played the game before.

Nick, Steph, and I played two pretty good board games.  The first was a dice drafting, resource management game called Castle Dice.  It was quite good, but not good enough to buy.  We didn’t finish the game either, as the guy at the booth was just showing us how to play and implied that he didn’t want us to stick around and play it.

The second game was a very fast paced interactive dice roller.  It was the next in the series of Space Cadets, called Space Cadets: Dice Duel.  In this version of the game you are going up against another team, and you have to load missiles, get lock, and move to be able to shoot them.  Then you must also dampen their lock, build up shields, and make sure they can’t shoot you.  Steph, Erin, and myself won handedly both times over Nick and the two other guys there.  We destroyed their ship without getting hit both times if I remember correctly.

Steph and I went to a really nice wine bar after that.  We had several flights of wine (Sweet, Alsace, and Port) as well as some phenomenal desserts.  We were joined later by Andrew and Nick.  We were almost done at the wine bar, but we stuck around for a bit longer and had another desert with Nick.

0

Housewarming

I had people over for my housewarming on Monday.  It turned out to be a little too warm.  When I turned on 2 burners and had the oven going the little amount of airflow that I could get from the apartment just wasn’t enough and it started to heat up substantially.  Steve was probably the most effected by it, but everyone felt a little warm to say the least.

I ended up having Jeremy B, Adam, Andrew, Amy, Adelaide, Tina, Amit, Candice, Brian, Nick, Steve, and Steve’s wife over.  It was a very large crowd for the space and I could not have fit more people in than were already there.  I was somewhat surprised by the turnout since only half of them said that they would be there.

We played some cards against humanity and open faced chinese poker.  The games worked really well in the space, and with the crowd that was there.  Everyone liked the kitties, and played with them using the laser pointer.  I think things went as well as could be expected.

I cooked a baked mac ‘n’ cheese dish, that turned out really well.  The bacon was super tasty in it.  I think I’ll make it again and take it over to beachhead for dinner on Thursday.  Jeremy brought over a cake, Amy brought over ice cream and root beer, Brian brought over some chips and dip, and Wit brought over some really tasty beer.  Nick also brought over most of the Liquor that we had built up, I’m assuming once he finds a place he’ll want me to bring over some of the nicer stuff that he likes to his housewarming.

0

Volleyball and Chocolate Garage

I just had a great time playing volleyball with Ryan, Steph, Nima, Caryn, and Amy.  I biked over and before starting we had some Stilton and Riesling.  That makes the last of the Riesling gone, I’m tempted to get some more but I’m also tempted to try a few others and see how I like them.  I’ll take a look on some of the wine rating sites and see what a good inexpensive Riesling is.   Ryan had to run, but the rest of us went to Chocolate garage afterwards.  I brought the rest of the Riesling and we finished it off there.  I got an interesting bar from Patrick, a 100% Grenada bar, and 2 by the company with the really nice flavors and the waxy paper covers.  I’m looking forward to having the vanilla one since I haven’t had it before.

0

Tina’s Spaghetti Dinner and Brian’s Birthday

Last night Tina, Chris, Steph, Brian, Nick, Riley, and Amit were at Beachhead for dinner.  I brought over some berries and wine, but ended finishing off most of the Riesling by myself.  Tina was making spaghetti with her grandmother’s sauce, which was really tasty.  Chris brought over a rum chocolate cake, which was delicious.  The cream cheese icing always gets me.

0

2nd annual meatball invitational

I had a great time at the meatball invitational.  A lot of people ended up coming as well.  Jessica, Caryn, Nima, Simon, Tony, and others showed up for the meatball making.  I served up some tofu pasta that some people liked and otherts thought was a little strange.  I really liked the meatballs and the marinara sauce that Nick made.  I am looking forward to eating a good number of them over the next few months.  I had a good bit of wine, some beer, some cider, and some liquor, but it was spaced out over the whole afternoon and evening.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑