Before Retirement, Vance Petrunoff Was Selling Bulgarian Wines from Sonoma, CA

..Fifteen Can't-Miss Wines for $15 Or Less 2004 Boyar Estates Blue Ridge Chardonnay, Bulgaria ($12) "Nothing makes wine cheapskates like me happier than brushing my hands over bottles of Bulgarian wine. I know I'm going to pay half the price of wines from many other countries but still get good quality. Boyar Estates is an innovative and irreverent producer of tasty wines. This barrel-aged chardonnay has all the usual ripe tree fruit and buttery goodness that makes it dance with roast chicken and, thankfully, my son's Kraft Dinner." --Natalie Maclean

The 2008 World Value Wine Challenge (WVWC) is the nation’s most comprehensive competition for wines $20 and under. Since these wines represent over 90% of the wine sold in the country, this is what matters most to today’s consumers. 88 • VINI (Bulgaria) 2006 Merlot, Thracian Valley. $7.99 Silver Medal : 2008 WVWC – Best Eastern European Red 86 • VINI (Bulgaria) 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, Thracian Valley. $7.99 Silver Medal Beverage Testing Institute offers trusted, professional reviews that include a 100pt. scale score, corresponding medal, and detailed tasting notes, and a diverse marketing package. Tastings.com . WVWC best performers will be featured in Restaurant Hospitality Magazine (the nation’s TOP restaurant magazine), the Tribune Company (includes print and online features nationally) and a homepage feature on our popular and free website, Tastings.com!

We did it again. Vesko and Kalinka from Orange County with friends from Germany, France and England (Penka, Reni and Penyo) were my guests for the weekend and did they get the Sonoma experience. We wined and dined, I cooked and served Miro's best wines - the famous Petite Sirah and La Storia Cuvee 32 and Zinfandel. Sunday morning we toured the Beauty Ranch, the Pig Palace and the Wolf's House, where nobody lived since it burned a day or two before Jack London and Charmian were to move in. In the museum there was the "Iron Hill" translated in Bulgarian.

111th Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival

This year marks the 111th Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival, a Sonoma Valley tradition celebrating the valley’s bounty, community and local culture. California’s second-oldest festival following the Rose Parade, the Vintage Festival takes place September 26-28 in and around Sonoma’s historic Plaza. The Bundschu family will serve as Grand Marshals of this year’s festival, “Rootstock: A Blending of Time and Tradition. Food, wine, art and family activities mark Saturday and Sunday’s festivities at Sonoma’s Plaza, which include music, dancing, children’s games, food and wine tasting, a parade, historical re-enactments, a wacky waiter’s relay race and grape stomping. This year’s- free - live music line up features on Saturday, Bautista, a powerful Latin rock band from Marin County as well as local favorites Ten Foot Tone, Natasha James and Joel Rudinow. Sunday’s entertainment includes the Whiskey Thieves and the Madison Blues Band with David Lindley highlighting the show. The music is fre...

Well, I went to the San Francisco Opera for the opening of the season and as usual I loved being there although this wasn't my favorite opera. Between all the twists of the span of 25 years, the poisoning of the Doge had an interesting line: "Even water tastes bitter to powerful man!" They poisoned his water, not his wine? Vance There was an empty seat on the left of me, and on the right as well. Where were you? The relationship between a father and daughter, a recurring theme in so many of Verdi's operas, is the emotional centerpiece of this highly regarded but infrequently performed work. Dmitri Hvorostovsky expertly embodies the title role, a noble Italian politician who is forced to deal with treachery and rebellion. The Houston Chronicle praised the Russian baritone's "gut-grabbing vocal heft," adding, "his stage presence was magnetic." He will be joined by Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli, lauded for her "impassioned lyricism" b...

I am so happy that Reuters published the following article about the movie Bottle Shock. Please read it, it confirms my point of view that Mike Grgich was deliberately not mentioned in the movie. This is identity theft. ========= No mention is given in "Bottle Shock" to the estate's wine-maker Mike Grgich but instead to Jim Barrett, the mostly hands-off part-owner of Chateau Montelena, and his son Bo. "To claim Barrett made that wine was incorrect, Mike Grgich made it," said Taber. "Aside from drinking it and appreciating it, he didn't know anything about wine. Mike Grgich got the George Orwell treatment and became a non-person." ========== LINK TO THE WHOLE ARTICLE