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Schmitz 24 BRIX Wines and Barrel Cellar Tasting Room

Schmitz 24 BRIX Wines Tasting Room is relatively new to the Shenandoah Valley. All their wines are highly rated with the Winemaker's Blend the most popular.

24 BRIX is a relatively new kid in the Shenandoah Valley. We watched over a period of weeks this past year as the old antique store on Highway 49 in Plymouth was transformed into the Schmitz 24 BRIX Barrel Cellar Tasting Room. When the Vineyard Vixens visited, we got a warm welcome from the owner and winemaker himself, Paul Schmitz. The 24 BRIX Vineyards I love learning new things about wine and winemaking when I go wine tasting. The name of the winery comes from the fact that they harvest their grapes when the sugar content is at or close to 24 brix (brix is a measure of the sugar content of an aqueous solution). They feel this natural sugar level is the optimal ripeness for the fruit…

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Most Viewed Posts 2018 Edition

This is one of my favorite posts to do during the year. It is so fun to look back over articles and see what was popular and resonated with my readers.

This is one of my favorite posts to do each year. It is so fun for me to look back over my articles and see what was popular and resonated with my readers during the year. It gives me food for thought about what to include as future posts. 2018 was a year of huge changes for me. The first few months of the year, things went on pretty much as usual. I visited lots of places in Gold Country to find the gems to share with you on the blog. Then, somewhere around May, some events got put into motion and I decided to start a whole new chapter in my life. I wrote all about it in post #7 below. Top Ten…

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Wine Lovers Vino de Mocca Fudge Recipe

Vino de mocca is a luscious dessert wine infused with natural coffee, chocolate and orange flavors and makes this fudge recipe especially decadent.

Kelly and I were headed back up the hill after a day at Horse Expo in Sacramento. Since it was still early, we decided to stop off at Drytown Cellars. I had been wanting to get some of their Vino de Mocca ever since I first tasted it a few months ago and just kept forgetting to stop and get it. Kelly tasted it at the Divine Affair fundraising event we attended at Jackson Rancheria recently and she liked it too. Vino de Mocca is a luscious dessert wine infused with natural coffee, chocolate and orange flavors that pairs deliciously with chocolate. Almost Local Vino de Mocca I’m going to be heading to a pet blogging conference in about a week and I thought it would be fun to take a…

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Notes from an RV Newbie’s First Weekend on the Road

If my first weekend on the road as an RV newbie is any indication of how things are going to go for the next few weeks, I’m truly going to love this life.

If you have been following my blog, you know that just before my birthday I made a life changing decision to downsize, buy a travel trailer and do some long-term traveling while moving in the general direction of southern Texas. Preparing to be an RV newbie has been a monumental chore with not much to write about so it has been a while since I posted. I’m back now and plan to share the whole adventure with you. If my first weekend on the road as an RV newbie is any indication of how things are going to go for the next few weeks, I’m truly going to love this life. Day one, Friday, October 12 I finally pulled out from Pine Grove at about…

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Casa Rondeña Winery – I Finally Get Some New Mexico Wine

Casa Rondeña Winery has been chosen “Best Winery” seven years in a row by Albuquerque the Magazine readers.Read on to learn why.

Although I had cases of amazing Gold Country wine in my wine fridge when I was getting ready to leave northern California, I didn’t bring much with me. I shipped a couple of cases and gave the rest away. Turns out, that was a bit of a mistake. My plan was to stop at wineries along the way and buy wine to drink as I traveled. That worked for the first week or two when I stopped in Lodi and Paso Robles. After that, discovering new wineries and wine remained an elusive longing. Once I left Paso Robles, wineries were either not located near my route or closed. Such was the case with a winery in Arizona. I had planned to boondock at Stetson Winery…

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Most Viewed Posts of 2017

Last year, when I wrote a post about my most viewed posts of 2016, the blog had only been in operation for just under 10 months. During that time, I wrote 34 posts, an average of over three a month. I didn’t meet my goal of at least four posts per month but I was pleased with the quality of what I had put out. When I sat down to figure out my most viewed posts of 2017, I was a little shocked to see that during 2017 I only published 32 posts for the whole year. That’s way below my goal of four per month. Consistency is definitely my biggest short coming when it comes to blogging, but I believe in quality over quantity. I…

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ZinEX Zinfandel Experience — Zin Lover’s Paradise

The Grand Tasting is one of the five events comprising the annual Zinfandel Experience, also known as ZinEX. The event is designed to entertain, enlighten and delight. Check out my post to see if they lived up to those goals.

When I attended the Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa in November, I signed up for an education session entitled Zinfandel Old and New which was put on by Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP). That’s where I learned about ZinEX, their three-day Zinfandel Experience extravaganza devoted entirely to Zinfandel. I have definitely become a Zin girl since moving to Amador County because of the history as well as the wine. I really wanted to attend the event but tickets were a little pricey for this gal on a budget and it was in San Francisco. That’s a three hour drive and I had no desire to drive there and try to navigate the city on my own. I doubted that I could get…

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Mobile Bottling Truck: Indispensable for Many Small Wineries

What do you do if you are a small, family-owned winery and don't have the room or don't want to invest in a bottling line? You hire a mobile bottling truck.

What do you do if you are a small, family-owned winery and don’t have the room or don’t want to invest in a bottling line? You could hire a mobile bottling truck. During a recent visit to Jeff Runquist Wines, the mobile bottling truck happened to be there and I got to take a look inside. The process was fascinating and mind bogglingly fast! Click play on the video to see just how fast. How the Line Worked in this Mobile Bottling Truck The boxes of bottles are emptied on a table. The bottles are put in the sparger which turns the bottles upside down and injects them with nitrogen. This removes all the air from the bottle so that the wine is not exposed…

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Toogood Estate Winery in Fairplay

In May 2001, Toogood Estate Winery was established on a 40-acre parcel of rolling hills with microclimates perfect for the varietals hand selected for it. www.goldencountrycowgirl.com

Wine Tasting When I was in my 20s and married, my former spouse and I visited north coast region wineries quite often when we traveled to see friends in Petaluma. In Southern California, we had wineries in Temecula which I visited. Somehow, in later years, wine tasting became something I no longer did even though I really enjoyed it. I hadn’t been wine tasting in probably 20 years when I moved to Gold Country, so I was pleased to learn that the area has many award winning wineries. I have heard that wine tasting in the north coast region, as well as their wines, has gotten very expensive. Some wineries there charge as much as $60 for tasting with the average being $40. Here, wine…

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Join the Family at Sentivo Vineyards

If you want to be treated like family when you go wine tasting then Sentivo Vineyards is where you want to be. Beautiful location, great wine and food.

A while back, my wine tasting group, the Vineyard Vixens, went to visit a couple of wineries in Fairplay, CA, and to pick up some futures. We had a bit of an unpleasant experience when we went to pick up our futures. Several members of our group had been wine club members at that winery and we had always been treated well and had a good time. Suddenly, since no one was a member anymore, we were treated like persona non grata. We didn’t stay to taste and instead decided to visit Sentivo Vineyards which had been recommended by Mary at Gold Vine Grill where we had lunch. I am so glad we did! The staff at Sentivo Vineyards saved the day for us so that it…

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