The Fuzzy Chef & Friends

For my and Lisa's birthdays (they're about a week apart) we took off Memorial Day for a weekend in the California Gold Country.  This weekend was the Rocks & Rhones event at some of the wineries there, plus we thought we'd get some hiking and other fun in.

First thing: Snow?  In May?  In California?  This Global Climate Thrash thing is getting out of hand.

We did get to go wine tasting though, even though the hiking didn't happen.  Click through for a review of some of the wineries you probably haven't heard of before ... 

Me and my fellow geeks enjoyed tasting all of the Greis wines.

If you come into Bolzano by train from the North, one of the first things you see will be vine-covered hillsides surrounding the valley.  South Tyrol (the valley) is an ancient wine-growing region, special for its large variety of slopes, soils and altitudes for growing wine grapes.   Many of these vines belong to Kellerei Bozen, or at least to the grower cooperative which supplies their grapes.  This winery has two labels: St. Magdalener and Greis.