workingman's wine

welcome to our first ever-effort at getting our long-promised blog up and visible to anyone who cares, which may or may not be anyone at all other than me and the few people who have worked to fix the technical problems that have plagued us for a while.

clearly, even though we're about to send this first post sailing out into the ether more or less just so we can say we did, what we have here, at least at this present moment, is a pitifully ugly-duckling and basic site, but we assure you that we're pretty quick learners, and expect this thing to get better (prettier, anyway) fast.

having had a lot of time to think about what I hope to accomplish with this site while we were trying to figure out why nothing was working the way we were told it would, and having had second thoughts about trying to do too much too soon here (not a new issue for me), I have come to the realization that I can do a couple of things that matter most to me from day one.

first, I can set the stage for what I intend to accomplish with this site from the perspective of conscientiously and relentlessly working to introduce to every single person who bothers to visit and read this now or in the future, the incredible wealth of stuff  to see, enjoy, and live in the world that is far northern California. particularly if you care about things like wine, food, mountains, rivers, and people without pretensions. not pointing any fingers, mind you, just saying.

second, I hope to be able to bring to the attention of the aforementioned people who care about the aforementioned stuff some specific folks who farm, ranch, cook, bake, or otherwise create certain products, whether they be wines, beers (lots of that around the north state), tamales, pies, cheeses, olive oils, boots, or something else entirely, who might without this little bit of help go unnoticed amidst the general goofiness that is the world as we know it today.

and, speaking of wine, many of you will be hearing and learning for the first time that we here in the lesser-known far reaches of the north cultivate something other than marijuana. true enough, there's a lot more acreage planted to the weed than to vinifera, most of it illegal and hidden away on public lands far out in the foothills, but it's more enjoyable and much safer to drink a new clairvaux barbera, for instance, with a furnari sausage crackling-hot off the grill or a mount Tehama petite sirah with a smoky-rich bourbon-sauced plate of brick's ribs than to hunker down in your crazy neighbor Dave's darkened den to suck on a joint while watching Monday night football, drinking a miserable light beer, and eating potato chips and twinkies. so I've been told.

continuing to speak of wine, I might as well say up front that our main focus will be what I call workingman's wine, meaning those that can be bought pretty much any day of the week for $25 or less. sometimes a lot less. and that's not only because that's mostly what we produce up here in the wilds of Shasta, glenn, and Tehama counties; more to the point, I guess, is the fact that those of us who drink it every day as a part of a healthy lifestyle, can't afford to spend $1000-1500 per month on one food group, nor do we need to do so. therefore, we feel not only compelled, but obligated, to help seek out and identify very good wines that most of us can drink on a regular basis without endangering the mortgage payment, and shall do so.

thanks for taking the time to seek us out, and for having the patience to stick with me this long. we'll have more to say very soon.

adios for now,
zinman