Because another wine food and travel blog was way too long.
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Pirates, Rubber Chickens and Spaniards, Oh My!
A Visit to Twisted Oak Winery If ever there was a winery that knows the benefits of social media, and word-of-mouth marketing, it’s Twisted Oak. Owner Jeff “El Jefe” Stai has developed a following on twitter and facebook, and in addition to good wine, is building a brand image full of pirates, fun, frivolity and well, rubber chickens. And since Joe loves great wine, and I can truly appreciate great marketing, we decided to take a trip out to Calaveras County before heading to Sonoma for Barrel Tasting. Twisted Oak has a tasting room in the little town of Murphys, but by the time we got to Murphys from San Francisco, the Tasting Room was closed. So after we checked into the Victoria Inn we headed up to Vallecito to visit the winery. I’d been driving what seemed like all day and was a little out of sorts from jet lag and time change. And I hated that we were late. And the last thing I wanted to do was get into the car and drive some more. But the closer we got to the winery, the more difficult it was to stay irritable. Why? Because as we headed up the hill we saw all these little signs that made me laugh! At the bottom of the hill as you approach the winery entrance there is the barn with a window full of chicken butts. And as you wind your way up the hill the signs get increasingly funnier. There are signs like “Speed Limit 9,” “Rubber Chicken National Forest,” “Loop 4,” “Speed Checked by Ruben” (with a chicken hanging from a tree) as well as these: When we finally got to the top of the hill, Joe immediately recognized the twisted oak tree that was on all the wine labels! Once in the tasting room, Mandy introduced us to the complete Twisted Oak portfolio, with the exception of Pig Stai (the fortified and power-packed dessert wine) before we headed out for a little barrel tasting! We tasted three whites: 2007 Silvaspoons Vineyard Verdelho, 2007 Calaveras County Viognier and the 2006 Sierra Foothills Ruben’s Blend (pictured here) given 90 Points by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, July 2008 and a Silver Medal in the 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. We also tasted a cadre of reds including the Grenache, Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, River of Skulls, The Spaniard, “*%#&@!” a Potty-Mouth Rhone-style red blend contains grenache, syrah, and mourvedre, and my personal favorite, a kitchen-sink blend called the 2005 Calaveras County Murgatroyd.
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View Comments to “Pirates, Rubber Chickens and Spaniards, Oh My!”
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May 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 am
Nice! I love visiting with El Jefe. I'm one of those crazies heading up before WBC, as I did last year, because clearly, I'm not going to have enough wine at WBC….
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
One of these days I gotta go visit El Jefe. Looks like you had a blast!
May 24th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Nice write up! I love the photos
May 24th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Visiting Twisted Oak IS great fun. We have so many pictures and great stories that we could write about it. But since we don't want to seem like groupies (even though the wine is incredible!) we'll have to spread them out over a number of months
May 24th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Visiting Twisted Oak IS great fun. We have so many pictures and great stories that we could write about it. But since we don't want to seem like groupies (even though the wine is incredible!) we'll have to spread them out over a number of months
May 24th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Visiting Twisted Oak IS great fun. We have so many pictures and great stories that we could write about it. But since we don't want to seem like groupies (even though the wine is incredible!) we'll have to spread them out over a number of months
June 24th, 2009 at 8:27 am
[...] might sometimes appear to be pimping for Twisted Oak wines, but we’re not. We are, in fact, members of The Twisted Few, and receive regular [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 1:37 pm
[...] who have not heard, we love Twisted Oaks wines. Not only is the owner a former computer geek with a penchant for pirates and a strange fascination with rubber chickens, he sells some damned fine [...]
July 9th, 2009 at 9:08 am
[...] We visited Murphys in March, prior to Sonoma Barrel Tasting, and El Jefe treated us to some fine Twisted Oak wines, fermenting in the barrel. This time we’re hooking up with some Wine Blogger friends [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
[...] at our own expense, to visit with Twisted Oak’s “El Jefe” Jeff Shai (we, for the second time this year)! That’s why others stayed over an extra couple days, at our own expense (albeit a discounted [...]
August 8th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
[...] Mary of Twisted Oak and Scott and Melanie of Newsome – Harlow hosted a little barbecue out back of the Murphys [...]
August 29th, 2010 at 9:34 am
much more pleasant experience
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