Just found out from Tim, our PR pro that the Midwest Wine Connection December issue mentions Cab Franc/Carmenere 2007 as a “Top 5 Value”.

…The supple flavors of Cab Franc combine with the more rugged Carmenere to form a very good Chilean wine.

88 points

As my parents just left, and James and I find ourselves exhausted, I see that I should have turned to FlyLady.net for a little pre-visit advice.

See, her method is to tackle just a little bit (15 minutes to be exact) at a time and you’ll have no need for a “crisis cleaning.”

Before my parents arrived, James and I took a whole day to freak out and run around the house, washing windows, wiping down walls, washing ourselves.

We vacuumed curtains, under the couch, the dog.

It was exhausting.
By the time they arrived that afternoon, we were beat — and I couldn’t get all the things that still had to be done out of my head.

Now that’s not a very elegant way to begin a visit with my parents.

If you feel like your house could get away from you at any minute, I urge you to visit the Flylady site.  It’s jam-packed with excellent house tips to keep it running smoothly.

My favorite takeaway?  Her holiday planning control journal.  It helps you outline all the cookies, the gifts, the budgeting and the entertaining well ahead of time so you’re not scrambling at the last minute.

And I assume you’ve entered your holiday disaster story to win an (oops) Holiday Survival Kit?
You have a great chance of winning an amazing prize.

Get on to it!

There are definite perks to being the (oops) wine blogger.

One such perk?
A shipment of the new vintages* to taste.

One such drawback?
As you may remember, I had a wee baby girl a few months ago and sleep deprivation has interrupted my wine tasting. So slowly, slowly, we’re making our way through each wine, being careful to make comments and plan our pairings.

My husband’s current favorite of the bunch is the (oops) Cheeky Little Red, Carmenere Merlot.
(I’m not saying that it’s not my favorite, I’m just holding back on claiming a winner until all the votes are in.)

It’s the bottle with the red top.
It’s a little spicy, a little fruity and I really like drinking it alone.

We tested it with pizza, beef and broccoli stir fry and tomato soup and grilled cheese and, well, it worked beautifully.

But like I said, I really like drinking it by myself.
When the baby sleeps.
When I can fit that in.
(Grin)

Following, you’ll find the beef and broccoli recipe that we tasted it with. And I’d imagine beef and broccoli to be a fairly tricky pairing for wine — there’s a little garlic, a little heat and that broccoli.
But the Cheeky Little Red did just fine.

Behold, the Beef and Broccoli

In no particular order, the ingredients:

1 pound flank steak
1 pound broccoli
1 bell pepper
1 inch of ginger
4-5 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons sherry
3 tablespoons chicken stock
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon corn starch
5 tablespoons Oyster sauce
1/4 c peanut oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
a few green onions if you have ‘em
Steamed rice

Cut the flank steak into pieces about two inches by 1/4 inch. It can be easier if you freeze the steak first for about 15 minutes, serrated knives also help.

Set the steak in a bowl and pour the marinade over the top. Put the bowl in the fridge and make some sauce.

In a liquid measuring cup, mix the sherry, chicken stock, oyster sauce, brown sugar and corn starch with a whisk until it’s all thick n’ viscous. Add more corn starch if it seems a little thin.

Set out of your way.

Now get chopping!
Chop the broccoli into small, same-sized trees.
Chop the red pepper into much smaller same-sized pieces.

Mince the garlic and the ginger and put them in a bowl with about two tablespoons of the peanut oil.
Pull the meat out of the fridge and drain the soy sauce.

Now you can start the rice. One of the nicer things about this recipe is that the rice finishes cooking at practically exactly the same time as the beef and broccoli.

Heat a large frying pan or wok pan or wok to smoking hot.

Add half the beef to the pan–don’t touch!–for about a minute.
Stir that beef all up and cook for another thirty seconds.
Remove to a bowl to rest.

Heat up the pan a bit, add a little more oil and add the rest of the beef.
Rinse and repeat.

Now the broccoli needs to be cooked!
YAY! MY FAVORITE PART!
Set the broccoli in the pan for another thirty seconds and add a half cup of water.

Cover the pan so the broccoli can steam for about three minutes.
Remove the broccoli to a cooler, drier place so it can cease cooking.
Now it’s red pepper time.

Recipe interruption: I had some problems with pan size here. The recipe I was working from used a giant wok. Because we got married in the early aughts instead of the early eighties, we have no wok.

Point? I changed to a big soup pot, something that worked okay for the tools we had.

Now it’s REALLY red pepper time.

Add some more (a tablespoon) oil, heat that up to really hot and add the red peppers. Stir the peppers fairly frequently for about two minutes.

As they begin to change a wee bit brown, add the red pepper flakes and wake up the garlic/ginger/oil mixture.

Toss, toss, toss as if your life depended on it.
Add the broccoli to the pot and
toss, toss, toss with the garlic/ginger/oil/red pepper mixture.

Add the beef back to the pot.
Toss, toss, toss that with the garlic/ginger/oil/red pepper/broccoli mixture.

Now grab the sauce, remember that sauce?
Grab the sauce and rewhisk it a touch until it’s thick and incorporated and lovely all over again.

Pour the sauce into the garlic/ginger/oil/red pepper/broccoli beef mixture and
toss, toss, toss with fervor and passion.

Let the whole messy, gloppy mixture heat through for a minute or two or the time it takes to remove the rice from the pan and put into a serving bowl.

And like I said, goes super well with the Cheeky Little Red.

*A vintage is the year that the wine was made. So (oops) is coming out with 2006’s and 2007’s right now for serving.

As you’ve probably seen, the contest is live.
http://www.oopswines.com/contest.cfm

It would make me very happy if you got yourself one of those adorable t-shirts, aprons or manly golf shirts.

I’d love to see you win!

There’s a new contest coming immediately and I really hope you win.

It’s the Lost Grape of Bordeaux challenge — and you can win some cool (oops) swag.

So read those wine notes, study that home page and check back for when the contest is live.

Hello, it’s August.
Hello, it’s hot.
Hello, it’s Nablopomo.
(And the theme is Hot.)

This month, I’ll be blogging hot spicy, hot temperature and hot weather wines.

(oops) is from Chile for goodness sake.
Chile is hot, the wines are made in hot temperatures and are delicious in hot weather.
See? Perfect match.

It’s winter right now in Chile, however.
Average temperature is 52°.
Chilean summer runs October to April with an average temperature of 87°.

Let’s go in November, shall we?
We’ll taste some wine.

Oh! And also hot is the article in this week’s San Francisco Chronicle.
All about Carmenere.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/31/WI2V11NCF2.DTL

Hot hot.

Following, you’ll find some photos sent to me by (oops) girls Tracey and Susan from the BlogHer closing party at Macys.

Enjoy!

So maybe I couldn’t be there in physical shape, but I could be there digitally. Ms. Tracey and Ms. Susan, loyal (oops) girls both, represented (oops) wines at the 2008 BlogHer speaker and editor party at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. They sent me the following photos of their time, and dang, if I was any more sleep deprived, I’d hire a driver to get me there stat.

(Looks like an awesome event.)

Well, we have a new addition to the (oops) wine family.
I gave birth to a baby girl 10 days ago!

She’s happy, smiley and actually likes her car seat.
(Definitely not an oops.)

What else is going on in the life of the (oops) blogger?

(oops) wine is going to BlogHer!

Next weekend, July 17-20, (oops) wines will be poured at BlogHer as the official wine sponsor. (oops) supports lady bloggers and their entertaining in all forms, and their handouts are the best.

I’m going to try my best to make it to Saturday’s cocktail party for the BlogHer conference, but I reserve the right to attend to the newborn photographed above.

The other great news is that (oops) logistical maven Tracey and (oops) design maven Susan will be representing. They’ll mingle and explain the wines and hand out some awesome free stuff — all in a weekend’s work. Keep your eyes peeled for their (oops) girl t-shirts in San Francisco!

We’re pouring at the Thursday night speaker party and the Saturday night cocktail party at Macy’s. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

It’s June, it’s getting hot outside, and we have some food that needs cooking.

I love spicy food in warm weather.

We’re going to make some home made taco seasoning, we’re going to spice up some fish, we’re going to blister our tongues and cool ourselves down with our own special air conditioning.

Wine isn’t the best match to spicy foods, beer, juice and milk will help you more. But we can’t expect every month to be wineready. We here at (oops) are just thrilled to help you entertain effortlessly with a minimum of mistakes.

And spicy food can be both effortless and mistake free.
Just watch.