Wining during the first days in Los Osos...

It's been a heckuva month! The Goddess of Wine and JD have successfully moved to the Central Coast! For those of you who have been following the hashtag #movingtotheCentralCoastsoon, it's been quite a ride.

We packed and packed and packed, with help from dear friends Xochitl and Mari, who packed up my kitchen and linen cabinet, respectively, as well as taking "treasures" to a local veterans' charity. And Mari, thanks again for the lovely bubbly and pizza break in the middle of the day. It helped. Big time. In fact, I think I'll never pack sober again.

The cake

Because we wanted to make sure to see all the folks who decided they needed to see us off, we threw a going-away party 2 days before the move, with the caveat that "If you want to eat, bring something to share, if you want to drink, bring something to share". We have the BEST friends! Everyone brought great stuff to share. Lots of lovely wines and snacks. Around 50 folks showed up and partied. Thanks again to Joe and Delia for the table and chairs, and to Shawn and Debra for staying late and helping to clean up. What a great send off!

Wining in the Santa Rita Hills...sort of...

Shortly after attending the extremely hot and hard to navigate Santa Barbara County Vintners Festival in Los Olivos, we had the opportunity to sample several of the wines we had missed by showing up for the Santa Rita Hills Winegrowers Alliance event at the Wine House in Los Angeles.

JD and I are big fans of the Santa Rita Hills. Cool climates and sea influences help create lean and elegant wines. SRH is a relatively small appellation of approximately 100 square miles. Intersected by the Santa Ynez River, the cool climate appellation is located between the towns of Buellton and Lompoc in Santa Barbara County, California. The Sta. Rita Hills Winegrowers Alliance includes both vineyards located within the geographical boundaries of the appellation, and those who craft wines from grapes grown there.