Plett was declared a wine region as recently as 2006, with grapes grown between Harkerville and The Crags. Take our tour of Plett’s Wine Route.
As one of just 1.3% of American farm owners who are Black, the ZAFA Wines owner aims to cast a counterspell against the curse of colonialism.
Fun things to do, places to visit and must-see attractions in Stellenbosch. Everything from shopping, outdoors and culture to nightlife.
This DIY farm table has a lot to offer but won't take a lot of time or money to build.
Before the holidays, we spent a day at Round Pond Estate learning more about their Gravel Series wines. We've been huge fans of Round Pond for years, so we were excited to be invited to spend a day with co-owner Ryan MacDonnell, winemaker Muiris Griffin, and the rest of the Round Pond team. The
When a fashion blogger and a southern gentleman get hitched, there's a lot of ground to cover. The wedding day should be rustic, yet stylish; gorgeous, yet not overdone. Luckily, and unsurprisingly, Jess and Dustin nailed it. The best...
The Robertson Wine Valley features stunning scenery with wine and dining, all led by the most friendly wine-makers, chefs and farm owners.
YOUR PEN WILL NOT HAVE OUR BUSINES NAME ON IT! These are watermarks only! Hi Everyone! I am the founder and owner of Sweet As Sugar Beads We specialize in educational toys, silicone bead supplies and hand-crafted silicone bead gifts and accessories. I have been an online store owner for over 20 years-so rest assured I understand customer service and all things related to owning a small business! This listing is for a custom made (in stock and ready to ship) ink pen adorned with silicone beads, a focal as well as spacers. The final product is a sleek gift for anyone! All pens come professionally packaged and with an extra ink refill. Stock #- DOWN ON THE FARM If you are looking for custom items like wristlets, lanyards, pens, wine corks, seam rippers, wholesale supplies, gifts and more than please reach out and ask about our MQO (minimum quantity order) and our TAT (turn around time). We love creating just the right items for your needs. Our specialty is teacher gifts, nurses gifts and bridal party gifts, but we can make just about anything you have for a vision. Items contain small parts and are not suitable for children under 3. Our silicone beads are made with high quality, food grade silicone! They are non-toxic, durable and safe. *BPA free, Phthalates free, Cadmium free, PVC free, lead free, nitrosamine free **CAUTION** Beads can pose choking hazards. NEVER leave children unattended with loose beads! We do combine shipping (use add to cart, not buy it now) All items must be checked out in one transaction to get combined shipping. All listings are set up to combine. All items are in stock, ready to ship unless stated otherwise. Ship times are currently running 1-3 business days from purchase. Any questions please ask! Xo, Maggie Sweet
One of your neighbors posted in Community Corner. Click through to read what they have to say. (The views expressed in this post are the author’s own.)
In vino veritas, as the saying goes. But for some, wine is just as much about truth as it is a convenient excuse for a trip. On the eve of National Wine Month, check out eight properties where the gr
This DIY farm table has a lot to offer but won't take a lot of time or money to build.
Creative Wedding Ideas and Event Design
This historic wine farm in the heart of the Stellenbosch wine route has introduced a bunch of fun, family-friendly activities, and everyone is welcome.
Clos Pegase Winery celebrates its 30th birthday, just as its architect, the late postmodernist Michael Graves, has a new biography released
"We're not California and we aren't France, and we're OK with that." Union Wine Co.'s straight-shooting owner, Ryan Harms, worked for high-end Oregon winer
Amy and Brian Kleinwatcher, the owners of Old World Antieks, give us a firsthand look at their antique-filled home.
After 25 years of endless hard work as a designer, small business owner of Tumbleweed & Dandelion and overall creative entrepreneur, Lizzie's first design book is here, with the immensely talented author and stylist FiFi O'Neill... "This book is dedicated to every girl who is not sure where she's going, but get's there anyway..." Lizzie McGraw...
Various bloggers and influencers visited these farm stay businesses. Read about their experiences and how you can enjoy a similar break.
Available for a limited time only. Location: Ninigret Pond, RI Farmers: Matt Behan. Owner/Operator, Behan Family Farms How they’re grown: In wine making, home buying, and oyster farming, location is everything! Matt Behan specifically chose his farming site because it’s tucked away in a beautiful salt pond connected to
Over my many years, we’ve been a part of many special dinners and events, but nothing has compared to the experience we had at the Walrus and Carpenter Dinner Series. Things started off at Lavin’s Landing Marina right on Ninigret Pond – a brackish pond that opens up to the Atlantic Ocean via the Charlestown Breachway. […]
What's better? Cabernet vs Merlot - Learn the major differences between these two types of wine including their pros and cons. The secrets to wine revealed...
To get to Windrose Farm, travel a winding road through San Luis Obispo County, down a long lane buttressed by oak trees, a field dotted with sheep, and you’ll find an arrangement of farm buildings and a broad one-story house behind the tallest oak tree of them all. Foothills rise in the back of the house like a staircase. Apple trees fill out the middle distance. A stone Buddha’s head the size of a stove sits beneath the enormous tree in front of the house.In the kitchen, Barbara Spencer is cutting vegetables. She’s 72, white hair in a short pixie cut, a thick wool sweater the color of earth, jeans, tall rubber boots. The house she shares with her husband, Bill, 69, is the gateway to their 50-acre farm, and the kitchen is its center, both spiritually and physically. It’s a high-ceilinged space filled with an old butcher’s block and a 1920s-era Magic Chef stove. On a wooden counter, a small mountain of produce spills against a stack of cookbooks, many written by the Los Angeles chefs who’ve been coming to the Spencers’ farm and Santa Monica market stand for over a decade.When your farm is steps away from your kitchen and your dinner table, cooking a holiday meal is a matter of collection. The squash and chard that go into the vegetable gratin were grown here, as were the apples that will layer the dessert apple crisp. The winter greens for the salad were just in the field. The lamb chops that are the centerpiece of the meal were only a few weeks ago part of Bill’s flock of sheep.“It’s simple stuff, just comfort food,” says Barbara of their holiday meals, which for years they cooked on Boxing Day instead of Christmas Eve or Christmas. It’s a slower day than some on the farm, and friends are coming over later, wine in tow, for a seasonal dinner. “Having this month as a downtime means we can cook, and cook for other people,” she says of December, when the seasonal cycle of the farm means less work than many of the other months of the year. Less work, it must be said, is a relative term on a farm. The lambs, which Bill sells whole to a few Los Angeles restaurants, including Gjelina, Salt’s Cure and Mélisse, do not take the month off, nor does Barbara, who drives one of the farm’s trucks down to L.A. every week for the Wednesday Santa Monica farmers markets.“Because we eat our own food, we don’t even think about it. After a while you take it for granted,” says Barbara as she cores and slices heritage Northern Spy apples, eating a few as she goes. “We joke about going to Alpha Beta” for ingredients, she says, referencing a now-defunct supermarket chain. “But really we went to cooler No. 3, or just went out and picked stuff.”The Spencers came to farming, and to each other, relatively late in life. Barbara was a cellist in her 40s, having spent a career as a studio musician in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, when she met Bill on a blind date. “Our second date was going to Costco and buying matching KitchenAid mixers.” She points at the white mixer on the counter. “Eleven days after we met, we cooked a dinner for 30 people.”They bought the Paso Robles land in 1990 and got married a year later. The house where Barbara is now standing, filling an enormous salad bowl with red chickory, chard and minutina from the garden, “came down the road in two pieces.” They stitched together their home, adding beams from Bill’s parents’ ranch in Templeton, a Lopi wood stove and a clawfoot bathtub, a back deck with a wood bench like a church pew.Bill comes into the kitchen, trailing almond wood smoke from the outdoor smoker where baskets of the farm’s tomatoes, chiles and garlic have been curing. He fiddles with the stereo equipment and soon Elvis Presley is singing Christmas carols on Pandora. “There’s your friend,” he says to his wife, who many years ago played cello for Presley shows in Las Vegas. (Also Frank Sinatra and Perry Como.)Bill adjusts the straw cowboy hat on his head, locates a bowl and heads out again to gather herbs for the lamb marinade. He picks rosemary, mint, sage and bay leaves from bushes, pots and beds around the house and barn, then pauses to feed the sheep. This activity unfolds like a Monty Python skit, as Bill loads a golf cart with squash and takes a short ride down the lane, stopping to lob pumpkins into the field. “I make them run as far as I can throw,” he says, as his flock zigzags across the grass. The other inhabitants of the field — a lone horse, two turkeys, three geese and three white Anatolian shepherd dogs — watch complacently.Back in the kitchen, spiced cider (pressed on the farm from Windrose apples) bubbles in a yellow Le Creuset pot on the antique stove. Bill slices his own sourdough bread (baked in another Le Creuseta) and plates it with a goat cheese dip that Barbara has made with their own smoked tomatoes and garlic. Bill grills the lamb chops on the stove-top, the kitchen filling with an intense, herb-laden perfume.“The modern world has really messed up the natural rhythm,” says the former studio musician as she pulls gratin dishes from an oven that’s almost 100 years old. And when she talks about rhythm, you get a sense that she’s talking about music, the farm and the life she’s experienced for the last seven decades, all at the same time. Another holiday song comes over the speakers. The dog moves in her sleep on the hardwood floor. Outside, there’s the sound of a car pulling up, then voices of the first guests arriving for dinner. And there is a beautiful natural rhythm to that.Windrose Farm: 5750 El Pharo Drive, Paso Robles, (805) 239-3757, windrosefarm.org
Pieces of furniture are an essential aspect of any home, and extraordinary furnishings can help add a unique sense of taste to any place. It seems to us that the world is full of clever people designing and inventing wonderful things.
This month we get two winemakers profiled from William Chris Vineyards, owners and winemakers Bill Blackmon and Chris Brundrett.
Think you've seen the best of rustic weddings? Think again. This couple crafted a day filled with muted colors, personal details, and a ceremony that included hay bale seating.
