Chateaux Castillo

This summer we're enjoying some bubbly wine made last year with Becky Castillo of Carpe Vinum here in St Marys. The picture at right shows me  tightening up the wire hoods on the plastic champagne corks last summer. Becky and I made the wine, we added some sugar when fermentation was complete and immediately bottled and corked the bottles. One year later we have a lightly carbonated wine that's crisp and clear with a slight sediment on the bottom.

Here's the longer story on what we've done.

I've been interested in making some bubbly wine for a while. Especially after having been to the Champagne region of France and exploring the cellars there. The principle behind sparkling wines (and beers too) is pretty simple. Take fully fermented wine (or beer) that's still alive with yeast, add some sugar, cap it in a bottle and the yeast will take the sugar you've added to make carbon dioxide (that's the fermentation process) which dissolves in the wine to make the bubbles. Champagne bottles will take the pressure, the wire cages hold the corks in the bottle. If you don't use wire cages the corks will pop out. Adding too much sugar, or using bottles not designed to take the pressure, will mean you have exploding bottles! We didn't have any explode although Kate (my wife) was worried.

Becky Castillo and I make wine at her facility. I suggested we try to make some sparkling wine and had a collection of bubbly bottles (you must use proper bottles that can take the pressure -- do not try this with ordinary wine bottles). While not keen she was at least willing and interested.

While in France I learned that "Blanc de Blanc" is a style of Champagne made with Chardonnay grapes -- Becky and I often make a Chardonnay so why not try making it into a Bubbly Blanc de Blanc! You can making bubbly wine with any wine. People usually do bubbly white (Seaview Brut has been a long time favorite) or rosé wines (I'm not ashamed to say I like the light frizzante of Mateus Rose) but I've had a bubbly shiraz from Australia that was quite yummy.

Becky and I started a chardonnay kit wine and she called me at the time where she would usually stablize the wine (to stablize wine they add a chemical which essentially kills off all the yeast). That's at about the 4 week mark when making kit wines. The wine at that stage is still very cloudy (because there's still active yeast roaming about) with some sediment on the bottom of the carboy. Do not stablize the wine -- you want active yeast.

We racked the wine off the sediment into a clean carboy and mixed it with 1 cup of table sugar that I prepared the night before -- I dissolved in a 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of hot water (that's essentially a simple syrup as used for making cocktails). We capped the wine with plastic wine corks and at home I wired the corks down with my drill and an allen wrench. The wine rested in our basement for a year (I must admit I tried it after a few months when you could see that it had cleared).

The bottles were stored standing up in our basement and cleared after a few months. They have a modest sediment (the dead yeast) on the bottom but this can be a virtue -- the wine picks up a flavor from that sediment. That's what they mean by "sur lie" wines -- wines that have aged a while on the sediment (lies). I handle the bottles gently so as to not stir up the sediment, cool them in the fridge when I want to enjoy one and pour carefully. The first few glasses I pour are clear, crisp and clean. Often times the last glass is a bit cloudy but I just tell people it's a "Cloudy Bay" wine. People who have tried the wine say they like it -- I hope they're not just being kind.

My original intention was to cap the bottles with crown caps and age the wine inverted so the sediment would fall onto the cap. Then freeze the necks in an ice bath, pop off the caps to disgorge the sediment and then re-cork as above. That's what they do in Champagne and other places where they make wine by the Champagne method.

I discovered that the wine bottles I had saved wouldn't accept North American crown caps so I gave up on that idea. The method I've used produced pretty decent wine. And everyone tells me the process of disgorging the sediment is fraught with problems -- very messy. We used to make beer by a similar method, I know the sediment won't kill you.

If I were to do it again I'd add more sugar. The wine I made has a light fizz to it, more of a frissante than a fully fledged bubbly. Corks still pop but there could be more gas in the wine. I'd like a bit more fizz and will try adding another half cup of table sugar in the next batch.

The hard part, as with all home made wine, is waiting for the wine to mature. ..... I must call Becky today and get another kit started!

There's another quick clean method for making bubbly wine that I've tried with Randy Partridge of St Marys Wines -- carbon dioxide injection. I'll write about that another day.

Postscript (summer 2014). This summer I'm enjoying a sparkling rose made shortly after the posting above. For that batch I used a cup and half of sugar dissolved in a cup an half of white wine to try for more bubbles. That worked very well and there's lots of fizz -- yum!

Rizdales

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Some photos of the Rizdales at the Home County Folk Festival 2013, Victoria Park, London, Ontario.

Home County

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Home County Folk Festival 2013 in Victoria Park, London, Ontario.

Performers include Tom Wilson (at left aka Lee Harvey Osmond), Valdy, David Francey (really great song writer), the Rizdales (from London), the Good Brothers, J.P. Allen, the Sadies and many more.

San Francisco

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Kate and I spent a few days in San Francisco in late May of 2013. Kate had a conference at the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill where we stayed. As neither of us were in any shape to do much tromping about we took a couple of bus tours instead. It's a city we really enjoy, hope you enjoy the photos.

Usually at this time of year we would have been at the KBS meeting which this year was held in Uganda. But we had been to Uganda not that long ago.

The Mark Hopkins is a pretty swank hotel — very comfortable. And we had a very nice room. The "Top of the Mark" is a restaurant with a wide sweeping view of the city. The picture at left, of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid in the business district, was taken from that restaurant.

Just down the street a little to the west is Huntington Park and the Grace Cathedral. The park has some lovely statues including a faithful reproduction of the "Fontana delle Tartarughe" (the turtle fountain) which I recall stumbling across with Kate one evening in Rome. The original is from 1580-88 with turtles added 1658-59. This one is much newer. The Grace Cathedral, at the west end of the park, is well worth a visit. It has beautiful ornate brass doors that remind me of the doors to the cathedral in Florence. There are some lovely murals inside. They are contemporary (murals by Polish-born John De Rosen (1949-50) and Bolivian-born Antonio Sotomayor (1982-83)) and quite impressive. The Mary of Magdala is quite impressive as is the story of the painting and the egg (chase the link).

From the Mark Hopkins we had easy access to the cable cars on Powell (running roughly north/south) and California (running east/west). Down Powell towards Market (where the Powell line ends with a turntable for the cable cars) is Union Square. A nice area to hang out on a sunny day.

Near the square we caught a open air bus tour of the city. I was having trouble with plantar fasciitis which made walking hard. From the bus tour we tramped around Fisherman's Wharf and saw some of the racing sail boats practicing for the America's cup race.

In Chinatown Kate and I had a very hot Sichuan lunch. The one pot was thick with hot red peppers, but still not too hot. I asked the waitress if I could have some utensils (a knife, fork and spoon would have been nice) for my meal. She politely, but firmly, answered "No". If chop sticks are all you have you quickly learn how to use them.

Lombard street, the crookedest street in all of San Francisco, is worth a visit. I'd hate to live on that street as there's lots of tourists snapping away (like me) and others taking their cars down the hill.

We visited the City Hall and actually did a bit of a tour. There's lots to see here. Most impressive is the renovations to earth-quake proof the building. The dug underneath the foundations to install sliding jacks to support the building.

We visited the Golden Gate bridge from the bus tour. From the north side there are good views of the city. Lastly we visited the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District. It's all that remains of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (somewhat like how the Eiffel Tower is all that remains of 1889 Exposition Universelle).

We also did a winery tour out of the city, to Sonoma to the north, but that's for another blog.

Sonoma

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Here's some photos of our Sonoma Wine Country Tour back in late May. We went with Terrific Tours (because they're small) and made some terrific friends. Funny how wine has that effect on you.

Travelling Steam Show

The Fred Eaglesmith Travelling Steam Show has been touring small town Ontario this spring stopping in at Legion Halls across the province. We saw the show at the St Mary's Legion Hall on May 11, 2013 with some neighbors (Chico & Diane) and some friends from London (Sam & Al). The show was well attended -- at or near the capacity of the hall. We enjoyed the show but .... more in a moment.

We've been following Fred for years now. Not following him in a "creepy" kind of way -- we're not "Fredheads" -- but definitely interested in his music and it's evolution over the years. His summer picnic in August near Aylmer has been an annual treat for us for many years now and we try to see him at other events when he's in our area. Fred's home these days (or at least when not on the road) is near Port Dover on Lake Erie. That's not too far from here.

These days the travelling band/show consists of Fred Eaglesmith (guitars & lead vocals), Matty Simpson (guitars, keyboards & voice), Tiffani "Tif" Ginn (accordian & voice),  Justine Fischer (bass & voice), Mike Zinger (mandolin & voice) and Kori Heppner (drums & voice). Fred seems to have embraced the "Steam Punk" movement which as a "fashion" seems to involve a top hat, welder glasses and spray painted platform shoes. I'm sure there's more to it than just a fashion statement but I haven't discerned what else there is. Well, there's the fascination with steam engines -- Fred likes trains but this seems to be taken a little too far. I liked him better when he embraced the cowboy style. That made some sense to me ... and I like alt.country. The music is loud and electric but he still does lots of his earlier music. The Travelling Steam Show is a "wall of sound" Rock 'n Roll Show with tinges of country, jazz and more.

The show started with two opening acts who travel with the Steam Show. First we had Bill "Poss" Passalacqua who performed a solo act on guitar to warm up the audience. He also acts as MC for the show. Bill is a singer song writer and has some very funny songs. "Hay for Sale" (about, strangely enough, hay for sale in various sizes) and "Jack Rabbit" (about a dog who was really good at fetching things) stick in my mind as really catchy tunes. Bill has several CD's, his most recent recorded by Fred onto analog tape on a mono-mike (available at Fred's Store and at Bill's Store). He also has a book, "Bill Poss Travelogue" (available at Bill's Store), which should be an interesting read -- tales from the road travelling with Fred and the gang.  He's an entertaining artist and a good MC. Bill tells us he'll be MC'ing at the Aylmer picnic this summer. I look forward to seeing him again.

After Bill we had a performance with Tif Ginn backed by the full band. Tif is Bill Poss's wife and they travel with their young son. They've been with Fred for several years now. For quite a while Tif toured with her sister Britani "Brit" Ginn as part of "The Fabulous Ginn Sisters" and have several CD's as a duo (available at Fred's Store). There's an interesting review of their last CD "You Can't Take A Bad Girl Home" I found at the Austin Chronicle -- a source I trust. I'm not sure where Britani went. These days Tif is a solo performer (with Fred's band) and a member of Fred's band. Her solo CD is appropriately titled "Tif Ginn" and was recorded by Fred Eaglesmith at his studio using a analog tape and a single microphone (cf. Bill's CD). There's an interesting review of her new solo CD by John Conquest (another trusted source) of 3rd Coast Music reprinted on Tif's web page. She's an accomplished singer with quite a vocal and stylist range.

An odd tid-bit. It would seem that Bill, then Tif and then Fred all share the one guitar. Odd, but perhaps the Steam Show is travelling light.

Now for the "but" I promised. Fred's show was as good as ever. The acoustics weren't great but I suspect it's really tough to deliver good sound in the room he had to work with. As always I felt the mandolin and accordion are buried in the wall of electric guitars. As an all rock electric show you didn't get to hear some of the quiet thoughtful tunes that can bring a tear -- "White Rose Filling Station" and "Rocky" come to mind there.

What I will gripe about is his relationship with the audience.

Fred is well loved by his audience. And of course you'll have someone in the audience (probably a new fan who hasn't seen a live performance by Fred before -- else they'd know better) who shouts out a request. Someone in this audience wanted to hear "Wilder than Her" (from Drive-In Movie, 1996) and requested it a few times. Fred, for reasons which escape me, doesn't take kindly to requests from the audience. It's odd because he doesn't seem to play from a set list, he just plays what comes to mind. That night what was coming to mind was rock 'n roll. He wasn't in the mood for the pathos of "Wilder than Her" (which happens to be one of my favorite tunes) and especially wasn't in the mood during the Pie Auctions where he's raising money for Operation Smile his current charitable cause.

Now most artists would deflect a request from a fan with some pleasant banter -- I recall John Prine responding to a request with a smile and "We play no song before it's time". Fred takes the baseball bat approach, and I've seen him do it too many times, where he tells the fan in no uncertain terms to stop interrupting. In St Mary's the angry reply from Fred was along the lines of "Shut the fuck up!".

I don't like that response, I don't find it funny and I don't see it as necessary or desirable. There are far better ways to deal with a fan. If you treat your audience that way don't be surprised if they don't return. This fan is tired of the abuse coming from the stage.

The Flatlanders

On Tuesday night (April 9, 2013) we were again fortunate to see The Flatlanders (Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock) at the historic Horseshoe Tavern on Queen Street in Toronto, Ontario. We enjoyed them at Antone's in Austin back in February and decided there and then to see them again when they came to Toronto. Our excuse, a modest one, was Cindy's birthday. She and Pat were great fans of this music and had introduced us to the artists as individuals and as The Flatlanders. It was pay back time for Cindy and, I know, she was pleased to see and hear them.

We drove over to Toronto on a dreary wet afternoon, had dinner at the Peter Pan Bistro just down the street from the Horseshoe and returned home after the show not getting to bed until after 2:00am. The doors opened at 8:30 with Joe Pug fronting at 9:00 (he joined The Flatlanders for a couple of tunes near the end of their show) then The Flatlanders a little after 10:00 with their show ending around 12:00 (a far cry from the early show at Antone's). It was a long day but well worth the drive.

The photo is Joe Ely who is probably the more famous of the trio -- certainly the most prolific with an extensive catalogue of music to explore. While Butch Hancock is perhaps the most prolific writer of the three (they all write) and Jimmie Dale Gilmore has the signature voice I've come to appreciate even more the music that Joe Ely writes and performs. He sang a song I had not heard before, "Not That Much Has Changed" from his last album "Satisfied at Last" (2011), that brought me to tears. It's a sentimental story of returning to your home town where not that much has changed -- "the grass is a little drier, the trees are a little higher.... the drug store is still for sale, they still sell cotton by the bale." A simple story, with well worn lines but moving none the less. You could easily imagine a prodigal son returning to the small town of his child hood in the flat lands of the West Texas where nothing much has changed.. That's where it began -- West Texas and the fertile grounds of Lubbock where, by happy coincidence, a motley crew gathered in the early 1970's to found a new kind of country music.

They asked if anyone in the audience had ever been to Lubbock. While it was a fan filled house very few had ever been. They talked about their early years together in those dry lands where, as children, they had never seen a "stream" -- it's very dry and dusty out there in the flat lands. Dry lands, cotton by the bale? Well yes they grow cotton on the Texas flat lands. Some irrigate from deep wells, dry land farmers and pray for rain.

Sow the seed in the ground below
Fall to your knees and pray real slow
That rain will come and kiss the seed
And Bless you with all that you need

That's from another song which really moved me -- "All That You Need" from Joe Ely's 2003 album "Streets of Sin".

There were lots of songs from all of The Flatlanders that stick in my memory.  Of course they did their 'hits' like "Dallas From A DC-9", "Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown" and more from their  1972/1990 'debut' album "More a Legend Than A Band".  But some of their more recent tunes made an impression -- the why haven't I heard that before experience. Jimmie Dale Gilmore did the song "No Way I'll Never Need You" from The Flatlanders 2009 album "Hills and Valleys". That one is a love song with a jaunty Tex/Mex rhythm and has been quite an ear worm ever since. Butch Hancock sang "Thank God For The Road" from the same album. I have that album, I need to take the time to listen to it!

This show was a little different from the Antone's show. There was the same hot band with solid bass, drums and hot electric guitar. But there was also an opening act Joe Pug -- a three piece band from Chicago (via Austin, Texas). Joe Pug is a young buck who had an interesting story about touring in small town West Texas with Joe Ely. He was out and about getting breakfast, buying some beer, etc. in this very small town where everyone he bumps into keeps saying how they were looking forward to his show that night. After a while he starts thinking, hey there's something great going on here, everyone is keen about my music, I'm moving on up, etc. Then he sees his reflection in a store window to discover that he's wearing a Joe Ely T-shirt. Ah, now it makes sense -- everyone thinks I'm Joe Ely!

Another difference -- they came on later (no early to bed for the geezers from St Mary's) and played longer. They spent more time chatting with the audience -- explaining how they got together in Lubbock back in the early 1970's, how their first album was recorded in 1972 and only released in the UK some 10 years later then in the US another 10 years later. Their latest album, "The Odessa Tapes", was recorded way back then in Odessa (several hours away from Lubbock) and lost for years.

There was a time during the show where the band left the stage to leave the three to chat with the audience and played acoustic to swap songs like in those early days when they shared a home together. Stories were told of Butch dreaming a tune in which Jimmie sang; and how the dream had only revealed part of the song and so Butch had to go back to sleep and rewind the tape player to find the rest of the song.

In homage to the music heard on so many of their albums Butch played a bit of "jaw harp" to accompany his friends. The acoustic set was an intimate moment and a bit of relief from the "big band" sound.

It was a great show with an older and reverential audience who hung on every word of each song -- even the opening act held the audience in his hands. We were all there to hear these songs. To hear them again and to hear them anew. And the sound system and acoustics of the venue was perfect to showcase the music. It would have been a show worth recording -- "The Horseshoe Tapes".  But sometimes an experience is best recorded in your memories and a few photos.

We especially enjoyed how the three swapped tunes back and forth. They're equal voices who often trade off verses on a song and share the chorus. When a single voice carries a tune we're surprised to discover that the song is written by one of the others but seems tailor made for the voice who carries it. They play together and showcase one another with no egos in the way. There are no stars here.

We enjoyed all the tunes they played and are keen to research our music library (hats off to Pat and Cindy there) to hear them yet again.

To end the night they encored with Townes Van Zandt's "White Freightliner Blues" as they had at Antone's and as a second tune in the encore they played Terry Allen's "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy". Terry Allen, again it's Pat who introduced us to that weird duck, was apparently part of that motley crew from their Lubbock youth. I didn't recall that connection! The story in the song is a weird take on picking up Christ hitch hiking with twist on how "He" works in very mysterious ways. Terry Allen is another artist that I knew a little about but have come to realize that I ought to know more. And then of course there's Lloyd Maines -- another one of the Lubbock crowd who is so pervasive in this Texas music Pat showed us. And don't get me started on the Jo Carol Pierce connection! Lubbock, what a rich breeding ground for so many interesting artists.

We were told that The Flatlanders were to play Carnegie Hall NYC on the following evening. I wonder how music that works so well in this small venue will sound in a big hall. One certainly won't have the same intimate experience as in this small bar. While the sound experience of Carnegie Hall is renown it's not the Horseshoe Tavern.

The Horseshoe is 65 years old. A tenuous 65 years with some near death experience. But it survives and is in pretty good shape with a good sound system, nice acoustics and a respectful audience. We've seen some important music there over the years -- Jerry Jeff Walker, Eric Bogle and Robert Earl Keen come to mind.

It was a pleasure to return to the Horseshoe Tavern and a great privilege to see The Flatlanders again.