Albion News

Living with Wine

  
  
 
Back in April 2008, Damaris Colhoun got in touch with me about a book that she and Samantha Nestor were putting together on custom wine cellars called Living with Wine. She asked if they might include some of my client's cellars in the book and of course I said, hell yes. My friend Alice Feiring was writing the text so it sounded like a great project and long overdue.

Damaris' family has Landmark Vineyards in Sonoma County which makes wonderful chard and pinot and is in one of my favorite hangs, Kenwood. They have a long family ag history as her mother is the great, great granddaughter of John Deere. Most importantly though, they have a wonderful cottage on the vineyard to stay at if you are in the area.

This was all going great and then it didn't...

Whole Trees Architecture

Roald Gundersen is designing wonderful spaces. His company, Whole Trees Architecture in Stoddard, WI, has a quiet and thoughtful approach to structure and form. He was just featured in a New York Times article but I don't think that will change his focus.

Conchita Cintrón

 
 
OK ... I'm drinking albarino, reading Hemingway and jonesing for Le Sud. But here's a reprint from Bruce Weber at the NY Times:

A headline in The New York Sun on Sept. 4, 1940, captured accurately, albeit with amused condescension, the startling anomaly embodied by Conchita Cintrón:  She’s a Timid Blue Eyed Girl But — She Kills Bulls Without Qualms.

A Big Walk About

Lately, as all the land around where I grew up is being auctioned off to the lowest bidder, I have been rereading my great, great, great grandfather's diaries. He wrote almost every day from 1826 when he, his family, cattle and chickens boarded a rickety vessel in London bound for Tasmania till he died in Alameda, CA in 1882. And I thought I had something to complain about!

Nashville Jazz

 

In 1989 I met Steven McRedmond. He was fighting to refocus a family property which was once the 1,000,000 sf Neuhoff meat packing facility on the banks of the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville. Long shut down, his vision was to bring in architects and create an arts centered community. A little backstory ... Nashville is a huge US transportation hub, a major university center, the state capitol, the country music center, etc. In any other US city, this site (with a panoramic view of the downtown skyline 10 minutes away) would have been scooped up years ago for development. Some of us were excited.

Nashville G'tar Town 2009

     

A dear friend, David Hart, who owns Nashville Wine and Spirits in said Tennessee city, called out of the blue last week and put me on a plane to "the Athens of the South". They actually do have their own full size replica of the Acropolis with manditory Athena statue. When David calls, its bound to be challenging but I will always dive in because I don't want to miss out on something interesting. But I digress...

The Treasure of Sierra Keller

 

We have demented friends, John Keller and Leslie Harrison, who live on a pristine Sierra ridgeback. Leslie is a renown, pastel artist specializing in unique portraits of animals. John, on the other hand, is harder to describe. I first met John when he was a talented marketing professional in Monterey, CA; his side passions were music and sculpting. He created the first and still successfull Dixieland Festival, played country music on the side and loved horses and fine wine.

Bohemian Grove groove

 

It's wackytime in Monte Rio again! For those caught unaware, Bohemian Grove is the long private playground for the rich and infamous in America. Nestled amid the pristine old growth redwoods in western Sonoma County lies a rustic getaway for the Captains of American Industry. This is where the greyhairs let it hang down in an ultra-guarded compound fed with all the bounty of northern CA.

John Haggard of Sophie's Cellars, a local wine resource in Monte Rio, seems to cash in on the gathering (think Woodstock but with a naked Henry Kissinger). We used to live in Sebastopol, down the road from The Grove, and yearly would hear all the sordid details of cross dressing, hookers and party overdrive. Hey, we all need to unwind, right? So, what's the theme this year: how to cash in on the American Meltdown Diaspora?... how can I turn Iraq into a reality game show?... is hooker a legitimate tax deduction? Please check out Harry Shearer's great spoof on The Grove, Teddy Bear's Picnic.

I'm just trying to sleep through the night and make it through tomorrow. Anyone up for a revolution??

Community Issues

 

In the midst of all the lavaflow of current capitalist flameout, Nancy and I retreated for a walk up the hill to where the great blue herons have been nesting for years. The newborns now stand three feet tall in deep nests of thick dead branches. The elders come and go .

Next to our little 1897 cottage is a huge 150 year old Monterey cypress tree and these herons seem to use her as some sort of fulcrum. They fly on one side while going down to feed at the estero and back to their nest on the other side. As we sit on our backporch at dusk with a bottle of wine, we notice their neighborhood orbit.

Building as a Path

   

Buddhist teaching, as expressed through Japan, has formed a large part of my world view. I have written here about growing up under the influence of Tassajara Zen Center in Carmel Valley, CA. That's half true, as that special place served as a strong focal point in my teenage years. The other, earlier part is that I grew up on our family's ranch (my mother's side) in the house of my inspired uncle. Click on either photo above for a slideshow.