Private Mars Rocket II

In order to get from Crater Lake Oregon to Redwoods National Forest, one must take US 199, the "Redwoods Highway." This road happens to run down the Illinois River Valley in Oregon. The valley is sparsely-populated by Eastern standards but by Western standards is above-average, and holds three wineries. Since I like wine, I decided to stop at all three.

My first stop was Deer Creek Vineyards, which consisted of a small tasting building about 3 miles off of the main road. Fairly good wine, but at $24 / bottle, a bit pricy. Still, I bought a bottle of Cabernet - after all, I wasn't coming back any time soon.

The next stop was Bridgeview Vineyards. It's on a tiny country road more or less near the Oregon Caves. It's the oldest winery in the valley, with a huge tasting area overlooking a small irrigation pond with a footbridge. When I pulled up, the door to the tasting area was open but nobody was around. I ended up wandering into a back office area where one of the owners came out and did the honors. They had a broad selection of reasonably-priced wines, and I ended up getting two whites (a Riesling and a Gert) as well as a pair of reds (a Cab and a Cab-Merlot blend).

I left Bridgeview and headed down the same country road to a tiny, ancient general store. This led me to a single-lane paved road, which became gravel, and snaked around the side of a mountain. The road ended at Foris Vineyards, a very quaint little operation. They had prices intermediate between Bridgeview and and Deer Creek. They also had a pair of Cabernet Francs that were entirely too dry for my tastes. I ended up with a bottle of port and a three-wine blend, their "Flyover Red."

All told, a worthwhile diversion.

Yes, Virginia, we do grow grapes and make wine in Illinois. Actually, not just in central Illinois, but throughout the state. We actually have a long history in winemaking, starting when the French settled what is now Peoria in 1778. Prior to Prohibition, most Americans got their wine (and beer) from relatively small and local sources.

Alas, Prohibition killed off most of these small and poorly-capitalized operators, leaving a huge gap that is just now getting filled by craft wineries and breweries. One of those craft operations is Sleepy Creek Vineyard, which is near my parent's house in Central Illinois. I visited the vineyard over the weekend (discovering that they have live music on Sundays) and bought a few bottles. (You can too - they ship to a number of US states.) Consider this my wine-review article.

Although we've been making wine in Illinois since before we were a state, the "name" grapes like Cabernet don't handle our winters very well. This has forced a lot of work creating hybrid grapes, which then force the winemakers to blend for taste. Still the results are (usually) very good. I bought a bottle of each of these on my last trip:

Sour Puss - billed by Sleepy Creek as a semi-sweet white / Riesling clone, to me this is more like lemonade. Very nice in summer.

Bashful Ewe - a blush wine / white Zin clone, this is also good, and made with Frontenac grapes.

Sleepy Creek has two sweeter wines, the red-Rhine-equivalent Hen Pecked and the dessert-wine Three Amigos.

They were out of my favorite dry red, their Little Woody. It's a three-grape blend that's a Cabernet clone. They had plenty of their signature dry red, Bull Headed, but that's too dry for me. They make it from one grape, Chambourcin, and it's got a bite to it.

Central Illinois wines - they're not a joke.

I'm back up in Chicago after my refreshing weekend downstate. While downstate, I stopped at Sleepy Creek Vineyards and picked up a half-case of assorted varieties. It's a nice place.

I am a voter for this year's Hugos. Thanks to John Scalzi and the minions at Anticipation, I received an electronic packet with 4 of the 5 nominated novels. I've purchased and read three of them already, and one of the ones I haven't purchased I started to read electronically last night. (You can guess already that the novel I've not seen will be listed 5th, if at all, on my ballot.)

So, three of the four novels on my short-list are straight-up action SF novels, and all really good. (Scalzi's Zoe's Tale, Doctorow's Little Brother, and Stross' Saturn's Children.) The fourth work is Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which is neither straight-up, action or SF (it's a fantasy). So here's my problem - how do you decide what's better - an apple or an orange?

I came back up to Chicago yesterday afternoon. In part, this was because after being downstate for four days, I had seen and done all that was to be done, and in part I wanted to avoid today's snowstorm. At any rate, mission accomplished - I am home and got grocery shopping done before the snow hit.

Guns

Part of the weekend entertainment consisted of taking the pistols down south and shooting them. The men-folk (Dad, my uncle-in-law from Kentucky, and I) did so Friday in lieu of shopping. My uncle brought up his Ruger Blackhawk, chambered in .44 magnum, which I got a chance to shoot. His gun has (I think) a 5-inch barrel, so it's not too painful to use.

I shot my Ruger GP-100, a very nice revolver, and my Rossi snub-nose. The Rossi is a nice gun, but at 24 ounces, even a target load will bounce it around. I also shot a few rounds through my Ultrastar, a 9-mm semi-auto. This gun and the Rossi proved popular with the other shooters as well.

My dad owns a very old Llama .22 semi-auto which was fired. The pistol is functionally identical to a 1911 Colt, but scaled down for .22 caliber. It's fun to shoot but not what you'd call a practical gun.

Wine

Guns and booze don't mix, so I didn't. But on the way back north Saturday, I stopped at Sleepy Creek Vineyards in rural Oakwood. I picked up a couple of bottles of their Bull-Headed dry red and, based on a quick sample, two bottles of their "Little Woody" semi-dry. The later wine to my nose smelled like port, which I guess is a fruity smell. Anyway, I'll have a more detailed report on it tomorrow, since wine and steak are on the menu tonight.

I just returned from the Midwest Wine Expo, a large tasting in Oak Brook sponsored by Binny's Beverage Depot. They had over a hundred tables, all with at least five different wines to taste, plus food from various restaurants. It was a nice time, and I've ordered my usual six-month supply of wine from them.

I'm not a vintage / appellation snob - I drink what I like. I do like sweet and semi-sweet wines, especially with summer grilled food. At this event, I found out about Fox Valley Winery, a local wine-making and grape-raising operation here in the Chicago area (Oswego). Now, even in Southern Illinois, the winters are too hard for your typical grapes, like Cabernets, so the winery grows various hybrids. Having said that, they make a selection of wines from sweet to dry, including a white Cin (White Zinfandel clone) and a very nice red blended wine which is a Cabernet clone. About the only "name" type of grape that will grow this far north is Riesling, so of course he's got that. I ordered several bottles from his selection.

One of the things I like about the wine expo is that I get to try various wines I wouldn't otherwise. So, at this outing I got to sample Amontillado, which is a sweet wine similar to port. At $25/bottle, I'm not buying it, but I could see why somebody would go into a cellar to sample a cask. The lady manning the table smiled gamely when I mentioned that, but I wonder how many times she's heard that line.