Rabbits and wine

Getting close to the day the Easter Bunny arrives. How is it that Easter eggs are delivered by a rabbit? Well, here is the tale I've heard told ...Easter often coincides with the 10 days of Passover, a Jewish holiday celebrating the passage of enslaved Jews from Egypt into Palestine, led by Moses who performed a miracle parting the Red Sea, allowing them to walk right across land where there once was water. A special dinner called a Seder is shared amongst family and congregants, with four glasses of kosher wine per adult swallowed quickly at different occasions during the feast, after raising the glass with a toast "La Chaim" = To Life!.
The first course consists of symbolic foodstuffs, Parsley, salt water, bitter fruits and nuts, a lamb shank bone, a honeyed mash of apples and hard-boiled eggs.
Years ago a congregation was making plans for the Seder. All invitees were to share in bringing something. Rabbi Thoshinski volunteered to bring the hard-boiled eggs. He left a note: "Rabbi T bringing the eggs."
As Christians evolved holiday rituals from Jewish as well as Pagan holiday celebrations, the message was interpreted as Rabbit bringing the eggs. To color the holiday as a spring celebration, Easter eggs were dyed lovely floral colors.
Now you know ...
Why there is a Leaping Lapin in front of a Bordeaux vineyard is perhaps just as a creative artistic creation as my colored pencil drawing of Rabbits making Wine.
Cheers

Oldest

As I age, the more I appreciate acknowledgement of the oldest of anything.

I recently read that the oldest winery in North America is Casa Madero in the state of Coahuila in Mexico, founded in 1597. Mexican wineries have been winning medals in European competitions for at least a century. The one winery I have visited is Santo Tomas in Baja. One of the many winemakers at Santo Tomas was Dimitri Tchellichief, son of Dorothy and BV vintner Andrae. The present winemaker is Laura Zamora, who has been publishing food pairing suggestions on some of the labels. Always helpful for consumers trying a wine for the first time.

There are also wineries located in the states of Aquascalientes, Zacatecas and Queretaro.

A popular family Restaurante Nicos in Mexico City, Districto Federal, includes many wines of Mexico on their wine list. Chef Lugo is an advocate of pairing his culinary creations with wines of his nation as well as tequila and artisanal beers.

http://www.winemag.com/Wine-Enthusiast-Magazine/March-2011/Mixing-it-Up-With-Chef-Lugo/

The Wine Century Club

A couple of years ago I qualified for membership in the Wine Century Club by completing my application listing 100 wine grape varieties I had tasted. At the time,

this seemed like a lot and the idea of getting to 200 seemed unimaginable, so I just relaxed, framed my certificate and hung it on the wall in the wine cellar. I also purchased the DeLong Grape Varieties deluxe wall chart package. [~ $30]The chart resembles the periodic table of elements. We also purchased one for grandson, Chris and our friend, Cristi from the Buzz, who was studying to be a certified Sommelier. She has hers beautifully framed and hanging in the Buzz coffee/wine Café. There are now quite a number of regional century club tasting groups, meeting to widen the education of members and increase the number of varietals tasted. Here is a link to the Wine Century Club where you can apply for membership.

Wine and Food Memberships

Geneology is slowing me down, so I decided to record my wine history as actively involved in world of Wine and Food for nearly 40 years:
San Francisco, California Friends of Wine, 1973 membership # 200 - it became the California Wine Institute.
Napa Valley Wine Library Association, Journeyman Diploma
1974 UC Davis various short workshop courses for winemakers
1975 - 1977 Basque Hotel Every Thursday Night Tasting Group San Francisco
1972-1979 Taster and contributing critic, Mark [Sante Fe Cafe] Miller's Marketbasket wine and food periodical
1975 Ravenswood Winery First Assistant to Joel E. Peterson, the Winemaker
1976 - 1979 Draper-Esquin tasting group
1972 - 1979 Women's Wine Group [organizer]
1979-1981 Wine and Health course for RN's - European Tour - Oxford, Champagne, Bordeaux
1981 J'faire les Vendage en Meursault,
1982 I made wine from friend's vineyard in PA - Marechal Foch and Seyval Blanc.

Since moving to Idaho, I have vinified dandelions, rose petals, huckleberries, cherries, elderberries, Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot and a 'backyard bubbly' from unknown grape varietals in yard since buying this 1905 home in 1986.
Idaho Grapegrowers and Wine Producers Org. - attended meetings at St. Chapelle in 1984.
Idaho Chapter of Les Amis du Vin 1983 - 1990 Brooks Tisch, organizer.
Johnny Carino's Wine Club, 1998 - 99.
Treasure Valley Wine Society 2004 - present.
The Wine Century Club, 2007
Buzz Wine Club - monthly and quarterly wine tasting dinners since 2009.
Boise Wine Club monthly tasting meets newly formed 2010 - 2011

Various Winery Wine Clubs:
Joseph Swan, Ravenswood, Ridge, Indian Creek, Davis Creek, Cold Springs, Fraser, Bedrock, Brown-Haight, Hell's Canyon, Syringa and Vale.

Other related education and experience:
Cheeses of the World - certified in San Francisco 1977. Worked part time in a Cheese Store in Marin County, CA.
1978 Certification from Comite National Des Vins de France.

Wine Regions visited:
California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Virginia, Maryland, NY Fingerlakes, Missourri, Ohio, Mosel, Rhine, Necker, Nahe, Austria, Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Jura, Loire, Rhone, Provence, Frontenac, NE.Spain, N.Italy - Piedmont, Friuli, Tuscany, Sienna Wine Museum.

Wine and Food Festivals attended:
Heirloom Tomato Fest, Sun Valley Idaho Wine and Food Festival, Gilroy Garlic Festival.


 Interests: - ongoing Home Winemaker, Foodie, History of Wine and Food, Organic Chemistry, Home Brewer, Ida-Quaffers, Anthropology of Wine and Food, maintain with my husband a Foodie and a Wine Blog, Amateur Restaurant Critic list of reviewed restaurants on our WebPage - www.rockinrs.com ... Ongoing research of regional wine and authentic food pairing for optimal balance and pleasure. Wine steward for judging- 2005, Judge for Idaho Wine Festival & Competition-2006, Past Chair of Judges for Idaho Wine Competition 2007, 2008, 2009. I had to write it all down before my memory leaves me and there are days I just wave!

Geneology of Perrin / Perrine

The surname of PERRIN was a baptismal name - the son of Peter, the name was from the Old French Pierre, a name brought to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. Apparently, family surnames were generally not in use until after 1200 except among royalty. It does seem odd that first names are the only way I [we] remember the identity of various royalty in history and the present: Henry the 8th, Catherine of Aragon, Louis XIV, King George and Queen Elizabeth. Do we use or even know their family surnames? Not as commonly as other titles such as the Duke of York, Prince of Wales and the same holds true for elected Papal personages, in that only a first name is commonly used: ie, Pope John.
As I have been trying to trace back Perrine family geneology and hoping to connect with the Chateauneuf du Pape wine producers Perrin et Fils, the fact that there were so many sons of Pierre or Peter all over Europe raises the probability of only being able to trace a family lineage through DNA comparisons and eliminations. At the very least, this has been challenging and mind expanding. Who needs drugs? Perhaps a little wine sets my imagination free to roam.
Cheers

Perrin/Perrine

The Perrine Bridge presently crossing Snake River between TwinFalls and the hiway to Shoshone, Hailey, Ketchum, Galena Summit to Stanley is a replacement for the original cantiliever suspension bridge first erected in the 1920's. This is the bridge that people free jump off on the East side - parachuting and landing on the south bank of Snake River. Popular with daredevils from all over the world, most succeed without injury. There is a bridge across the river down in the canyon. Originally, built as a toll bridge replacing a "ferry or raft" method for crossing Snake River, it now holds the water cysterns transporting drinking water to Twin Falls from Blue Lakes.
IB Perrine designed the center of Twin Falls on a diagonal plat, to take advantage of sunshine with no cardinal facing buildings. The original center city Perrine Hotel was often a destination for political candidates, with a grand balcony used for campaign speeches. William Jennings Bryant, 2X presidential candidate, loved to visit Idaho and the Blue Lakes Ranch.
Thomas Edison and Luther Burbank were good friends to IB Perrine. He had the first electric light bulbs installed in the canyon house. The first Red and Golden delicious apples were grafted onto Blue Lakes apple trees. My aunt just found a document that invited IB Perrine to consult with orchardists in France, but he declined. At the peak of his fame and wealth, he would attend the Opera in Salt Lake City with his wife and my grandmother. They had a family box and the 'ladies' had to have the latest couiture dresses made by a French dressmaker in SLC.
IB dabbled in investments in others gold mines and the stock market. He lost everything in the crash of 1929. The Blue Lakes Country Club leased the land from him until he had to sell it to them to live on. IB died the same year I was born, HG [ GiGi] died in Boise when I was 4.
more to follow ...

Idaho/Oregon Rootstock

Recently, I was asked to describe the origin of my interest in Idaho wines.


My mother's family were Oregonians from the 1800's. She and her mother were born in The Dalles. One of those earlier Remington ancestors was from the Dr. Benjamin Rush lineage, who consulted at President Thomas Jefferson's request, by training Merriweather Lewis in medical knowledge and asked him to bring back samples of indigenous medicinal herbs. The voyage of discovery brought many pioneering families into Oregon and Idaho. My Robinson relatives became wheat farmers and livestock ranchers in the John Day and Redmond, Oregon areas. Not wanting to stay on the farm, my mother's father became a salesman and eventually a J.C. Penny Manager in Wenatchee, WA, Bend, OR and Twin Falls, ID.


My mother graduated from Twin Falls HS in 1938. She was the first "Miss Twin Falls" competing in the Miss America pre-lims at Sun Valley. She met my father in elementary school in Twin Falls. He was a 6'th grade student who instructed her 4'th grade class during a 1929 seasonal flu epidemic that knocked out a lot of teachers as well as students.


Photo of Grandmother Stella Haight, my mother Jeanne Robinson Haight and me on GG Perrine's lap.

My father's family roots included Donald McKay who came 'round the horn' from Boston to San Francisco. [see picture of clipper ship] during the Gold Rush in the 1850's. He followed the rush to Idaho in the 1860's and became a "founding father" of Hailey, Idaho.

He must have made a good income from mining: he ordered Kangaroo skin shoes from Australia and wore 3 piece wool suits. He married Amanda Bartholemew, they purchased the McPhail Hotel in Shoshone,and raised two daughters, Stella and Hortense Genevieve. [my great grandmother]. He was a knowledgeable blacksmith as well and was remembered by my grandmother as always carrying mints in his vest pockets.

Ira Burton Perrine left Indiana at age 18 to find his fortune in the Idaho mines. He was too small of stature to do much heavy lifting, but he learned how to use dynamite and knew enough about dairy farming to bring the first herd of milk cows to Hailey in the 1880's. When the snows of his first winter became too deep in Hailey for the cows to graze, he was told by hotelier Henry Walgamott about the Blue Lakes in the Snake River Canyon, where the snows rarely stuck and grasses grew year round - probably due to some of the warm springs. He drove his cows down an entrance through a box canyon, where his only neighbors were a white trapper and a native woman. The present day N. canyon wall double hairpin curved road to Blue Lakes Country Club east of Alpheus creek and the fish hatcheries to the west was a one-lane project that took him 7 years to complete. He was also hired by Mr Walgamott to drive the stage coach back and forth from Walgamott's canvas hotel to the train station in Shoshone, where he met and later married H.G. McKay known to me as GG or GiGi. IB Perrine built a fine house down in the canyon and became an early fruit farmer and orchardist. He took saddlebags of fresh strawberries to the pioneers on the Oregon Trail stopping at Rock Creek station. His prune plums and Roma apples won awards at the 1900 Paris World expedition, as well as the first Idaho State Fair in 1897 and fairs throughout the west. The only ranch building remaining is the bee-keepers cabin on Alpheus Creek.

Ward Hooper graphic of the IBPerrine bridge.



The Perrine family ancestry in the US began with the Huguenot, Daniel Perrin immigrating in 1665. He was granted 80 acres on Staten Island. Winegrape growing was a natural cultural necessity, along with the usual crops for feeding his family.
IB Perrine planted Delaware grapes [from Delaware, Ohio - some believe Napolean's son planted the Ohio vineyard - Lord De La Ware was honored with the common name for a grape which is neither native labrusca, nor a vinefera cultivar, but thought to be a french hybrid] IB made cider from his apples, but no one remembers him making wine. The Delaware grapes were my father's favorite grape. He lived down in the canyon while attending school in Twin Falls. I surmise he accepted employment as a Chemical Engineer with DuPont, thinking he could get those grapes in the state of Delaware.
Although the surname Perrin / Perrine is as common in France as Smith or Jones is here, we like to claim a family relationship with the reliable Southern Rhone family of winemakers - Perrin et Fils or the Champagne Perrins in the Aube/Ardennes between Reims and Dijon.

To be continued ....