Isn't it funny how the sight of a wonderful wine can bring you back to a miserable memory of your past?

I was in the wine section of a fancy pants grocery store (which I'm no longer intimidated by because they tend to have good wines at EVERY price point, even $10 or less) the other day and there it was...the wine that got me through the worst weeks of my life on vacation in Estonia.

Before we go to the dark side, I want to say that Chilean wines are one of the best kept secrets in the wine industry.  Wine by the glass lists often feature many of them as the quality is high and the price is low.  I love Cono Sur wines so much I've decided to manifest a trip to Chile just to visit their winery.

www.conosur.com

The European vinifera grapevine was first brought to South America by the Spanish conquistadors.  Like Washington's Columbia Valley, Chile is one of three places producers can plant on their original vitus vinifera rootstock, the other being Tasmania (Incidentally, my folks are considering buying a winery in Tasmania.  Remember when I said, 'Who the fuck goes to Tasmania?'  Me.  Apparently me.  Weed had better be legal...).

Chile has very little precipitation, making fungal disease less of an issue, while the snow capped Andes Mountains provide the vineyards with all the irrigation water they want.  Combined with plenty of sunshine and no phylloxera, Chile is a viticultural paradise.  These conditions also make organic viticulture easier (hooray!).  Cono Sur has an organic line, but to be honest I prefer their sustainable ones (shhhhhhhh...).

So here's why the vacation was so bad...

I'm a bipolar bear (I hate when people say 'She's bipolar.'  What the fuck does that even mean?  Do they say 'She's depression?'  'She's schizophrenia?'  No.  But for some stupid fucking reason, 'bipolar' is used to describe the person, as well as the illness.  It makes more sense to say someone is a manic depressive.  That at least describes a person.  I am no longer in a state of disorder.  So why am I still 'bipolar'?  Whatever.  Til we figure it out, I'm a bipolar bear.  Where was I?  Oh yes...)

Par for the course, I had stopped taking my meds 2 years earlier, thinking I could solve the problem with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (I love you Suzanne Somers), supplements, yoga and meditation.  They helped a little bit, but didn't solve the problem.

I wasn't sleeping, my bro and I weren't getting along ('You became an asshole after you got your tits done.'  'Hey...fuck you...I was ALWAYS an asshole').  The physical pain was excruciating.  I don't know quite how to describe it.  Just know that shaving my head and jumping off a balcony would've brought relief.  When I saw the Cono Sur wine the other day, I actually FELT the pain again.  Then I bought it, drank it, and the pain went away.

It is beyond frustrating no one ever seems to know the cause of bipolar disorder (not even my shrinks!), they just focus on the symptoms.

Luckily, the men in my chat room (and life) had been driving me so bat shit crazy, I picked up a copy of John Gray's 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'.

And I'm so glad I did.  First of all, it was nice to finally have permission to acknowledge men and women are different.  Thanks to feminism, I've been taught my whole life that men and women are equal.  This may surprise you, but I'm good at math.  Got 700 on my math SATs.  Equal means the same.  HOW CAN WE BE EQUAL???  WE ARE NOT THE SAME!!!  We have different bodies, different brains, we don't fuck the same way, we can't drink the same way (motherfucker), but I digress...

I found this on his website.

http://www.marsvenus.com/blog/john-gray/what-is-bipolar-disorder-or-manic-depression

Armed with this new information and his encouragement (twitter), I made it home (barely), got back on my meds (not lithium), and am feeling better.  Eventually, I can head in the direction of his treatment plan.  I know I'm not out of the woods yet (dammit...now I have that Taylor Swift song stuck in my head), far from it, but I'm out of the danger zone (GODDAMMIT...now I'm picturing Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer playing shirtless volleyball...competing with Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers frolicking in the waves for gayest scene ever...).

Aaaaaaaaand now I have the Rocky theme in my head...and the overwhelming urge to watch Predator.

Oh!  That reminds me.  The best portrayal of bipolar disorder I have EVER seen is Claire Danes in Homeland (Predator...Arnold Schwarzeneggar...Terminator 3...Claire Danes).

She is BRILLIANT.  So many times my jaw has hit the floor and I've looked around for cameras. Whether she's having a meltdown in her closet, or washing her meds down with chardonnay, she masterfully illuminates the highs and lows and everythings in between that make up the daily struggles in the life of a bipolar bear.

And if I could ever meet Carrie Mathison in person, I'd only have one question for her.

Have you tried Chilean wines???

Happy 420!!!

A year ago today I was in Amsterdam for the first time ever.  Oh yeah...

But let me back up a bit.

After that fun weekend in London, I continued on to Estonia with my brother, where he resides.  I should've been headed for home to get back on my crazy pills, but for personal reasons I just deleted, I couldn't.  I had to stick it out another 4 weeks.  He'd bought us plane tickets to Amsterdam for 4/20.  I had never been.  We ARE the Wonder Weed Twins.  It meant a lot for us to finally go together.

Estonia is located on the Baltic Sea, north of Latvia, west of Russia.  It consistently ranks high on the lists of most alcohol consuming countries (right on!).

Old Town Tallinn is charming.  Takes you back in time.  Very Game of Thrones.  So many fantastic restaurants to choose from.  My favorite and highly recommended pub is The Third Dragon.  It's located in the town square, where the Christmas market is held every year.  They have the most delicious (and ridiculously inexpensive) elk jerky, elk stew, meat pies, sausages, homemade pickles, fresh cider and homemade schnapps (theirs was a neutral grain spirit flavored with what I'm guessing was apples and infused with cinnamon).

Going to buy weed, though, was no fun.  We had to walk many kilometers in the freezing cold to a section of town that looked like the Soviet Union in the 80s.  The weed was 100 Euros ($113) per quarter (I pay $50 here in Oregon) and it was TERRIBLE!!!

Somehow I made it to the end of the 4 weeks without shaving my head or jumping off my brother's balcony (both were starting to seem like good ideas) and got on a plane to Amsterdam.

And WOW was it worth it.

After we got checked into our hotel, we went to a nearby coffee shop, ordered lattes and eighths, grabbed some rolling papers and sat at an outside table, facing one of the canals.

What a beautiful city.  Beautiful people with beautiful bodies on bicycles who were more aggressive than New York City cab drivers.  Every time I hear a bicycle bell now I clench my butt cheeks.

We finished our coffee and celebratory smoke, braved the bikers and made it to a gourmet grocery store with the cutest little wheels of cheese I have ever seen.  Bro grabbed us a 6-pack of Heineken, a baguette, a wheel of Gouda and back we went to the room for a proper breakfast.

Heineken, known by it's signature green bottle and red star, is a local Amsterdam lager sold in over 170 countries and is considered to be the world's most international beer brand (23 IBU / 5.4% ABV).

www.heineken.com

We had the best time at The Heineken Experience, a tour of their big brewery a few blocks from the center of the city.  For 16 Euros you get the tour and a tasting of seemingly endless beer.  I got shit faced AND learned some stuff...

There are 2 types of beer: ales and lagers.  Ales are fermented warm (like red wine), are made with a top fermenting yeast and tend to be darker in color with a fruity taste.  Lagers are fermented cold (like white wine), are made with a bottom fermenting yeast and tend to be lighter in color with a crisp taste.

Lager is the most popular style of beer in the world, accounting for over 90% of all beer consumed.

Heineken is a lager made in the pilsner style.  Pilsner isn't a type of beer, it's a type of lager.  The name pilsner comes from the town Pilsen in the Czech Republic, where it was first produced in 1842.  Heineken calls their beer a pilsner, but acknowledges the only true pilsner is a beer from that region.

I'm so glad I went to Amsterdam when I did.  Marijuana was legalized here in Oregon on October 1st.  To go to Amsterdam now would almost be pointless...

I say almost because I'd still really like to get a blow job lesson from a hooker.  Tried to.  I'd talked my man into it, saying it was adventuresome and think of all the things she must know...

He'd joined my brother and I on our last night there.  After a full day, my bro needed to lay down for a nap (pass out), so my guy and I went on a thorough stroll through the Red Light District looking for the perfect teacher.  Not an easy task.  Maybe it's because I was baked to the gills, but all their little "offices" with their dark red velvet curtains reminded me of coffins, and most of the women with their heavy makeup looked like vampires.  It was freaky.

Eventually we found a happy looking blonde in a florescent pink bikini that didn't seem miserable, coerced or dead inside.  But my man immediately chickened out on the bj (with a condom of course) and said he'd rather just feel up her boobs.  Fine.  Can I at least suck your cock during or after and get a few pointers from her?  Um...yes.

Unfortunately, I love amusement park rides...particularly the one with lots of swings that go round and round in a circle as it raises you up for a few minutes, then comes back down.  Feels like you're flying.

Well, we found a mini carnival, they had the ride, it was night time and I thought it would be fun to go on it before my fellatio tutorial.

I should mention I'd chosen to try magic mushrooms (legal in Amsterdam) for the first time earlier that day.  My bro and I wanted to trip whilst walking through the fields of flowers at Keukenhof Gardens (which was freaking AWESOME).

The shrooms hadn't completely worn off yet.  As the swings rose up they kept going higher and higher and higher...at least twice what I was used to.  I cannot describe the terror that swept over me.  My hands turned to water faucets and kept slipping off the safety bar.  So much adrenaline surged through my body I almost threw up.  My husband sitting next to me was having a blast watching me completely freak the fuck out.  We snapped before and after pictures.  I didn't tweet them.

As I staggered away from the ride trying not to hurl, we headed back to the Red Light District in search of Blondie.  When we got there the noise, lights and smells made me feel even more nauseous.  Honey...we gotta get out of here.  I'm gonna be sick.

Luckily, we made it back to the room without me demoting myself to the rank of amateur, but of course NOW my husband was bummed.  Tell a man he CAN'T have something...

So I WILL be going back to Amsterdam.

Besides, I have another date with the tulip fields.

Now I totally understand why bitches choose to be trippin'.

Tot de volgende keer...

So I can't blog about Redhook Brewery without mentioning the behemoth next door, Chateau St. Michelle.

http://www.ste-michelle.com

I LOVE THIS WINERY.  Grew up going to concerts there.  I have such fond memories of walking around the estate and feeding giant fish in ponds stale pieces of Wonder Bread (my apologies to those fish).  My folks still go.  Every summer us kids can count on a drunk dial from Mom with jazz blaring in the background.

The impressive gift shop is laden with the ultimate (expensive) wine and cheese picnic baskets, and every kind of wine accoutrement imaginable.  As you make your way to the back, they have a beautiful tasting bar, with tastings starting at $5.  I went with one of those as my husband dove into the nearby plate of oyster crackers.  "Honey...those are palate cleansers, not hors d'oeuvres."

THE TOUR IS FREE!  As our wine educator started with the winery backstory, a guy behind us was being very rude, having a full volume conversation with his female companion while the tour guide was talking.   I actually turned around and shushed him.  I was wearing a boob top, so he shut the fuck up.  The power of tits.

Their fermenting and aging rooms are equally impressive, as is their gigantic bottling room.  They make and bottle all of their wine on sight, but most of their vineyards are on the other side of the Cascade mountains in the Columbia Valley.

At the end, they taste you through 3 wines!  Wish I'd known about that last part before paying for a tasting, since I was going to be drinking my husband's three.  Pretty sure one of the commandments on that stone tablet Mel Brooks dropped in History of the World was THOU SHALT NOT WASTE ALCOHOL.  And you know...once a Catholic...

Every time I visit my family, I have to go to a tasting there.  My folks belong to the fancy pants wine club, so we go to a super special monkey lounge to taste all of the reserve wines.  After this blessed communion, they pick up their wine club release, take it home, and hide it from me.

First time I had a Chateau St. Michelle wine was at the very enjoyable restaurant Cutters in Pike Place Market.  I was with a group of actors from the musical I was in.  I was 16, but didn't look it (I'd stopped getting carded at that point and I was NEVER carded in NYC).  I ordered a Johannesburg Riesling.  It paired perfectly with the meal I was having...clams steamed in white wine with shallots and a toasty, buttery baguette.  Mmmmmmmmm...

In all my years of traveling, whether it was NYC, LA or Estonia, in every grocery or liquor store, I was always able to find a bottle of Chateau St. Michelle, see the familiar label, and feel less homesick (a chronic condition for military brats).

 I like ALL of their dry whites and reds, but my feature this week is their merlot.  They have several at different price points depending on which of their different vineyards the grapes came from (this one is around $15).

Fun fact: Sales of merlot dropped significantly after Paul Giamatti's famous line in the movie Sideways.

Certain regions are known to be THE place for different varietals.  For Washington, it's merlot, the most widely planted grape in the state.  Notice what it says at the bottom of the label...100% Vinifera Rootstock.

A little wine geeky grape farmer stuff...

It is believed wine production and consumption began in the Middle East (Persia) 5000 to 6000 years ago.  Vitus Vinifera, the original species of grape that is most often used for wine production, is native to a region just northwest of Iran.

But there are only 3 places in the world where they still exist.

A long time ago, in a vineyard far, far away, before customs and fruit declaration, disaster struck the wine world in the form of a root louse, phylloxera, native to the Eastern United States.  Similar to an aphid, a phylloxera is a small, sap-sucking insect that feeds on roots and leaves.  It was brought to France on a merchant ship carrying grapevines native to North America.  Within 20 years, it had spread throughout the country, destroying nearly all of France's vineyards.  It continued to spread throughout Europe, threatening to wipe out their entire wine industry.

Luckily, someone learned how to graft.

And our rootstocks, being native to the region phylloxera is from, had evolved to be resistant to the pest.  We sold them to Europe and saved the day!

Actually, it's more like we gave the wine world crabs, but only WE had the medicated shampoo, and sold it to them.  I would make a Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/Iraq joke right about here, but I wouldn't want to insult pubic lice.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  Pylloxera don't like sandy soil and icy winters, both found in Eastern Washington in the Columbia Valley (which happens to share the same latitude as Bordeaux).  So their wine is made from original vitus vinifera rootstock (the other 2 places are Chile and Tasmania...I know.  Who the fuck goes to Tasmania?).

It is debated by wine experts and enthusiasts if this makes a difference at all in taste or quality.  I've been drinking Washington wines for years.  Honestly, I can't tell the difference.  I just know I love Washington wine.

On the beer front, my quest for the perfect amber ale continues.  I have yet to find one that knocks Redhook ESB out of the #1 spot.  I accidentally bought 2 red IPAs, thinking they were amber ales.  Would've helped if I'd read the label, but I saw the word red and assumed.  They'd have been fantastic if they were what I was craving.

I tried an organic amber ale from California.  Tasted like weak tea.

But I will not be discouraged.  Got my next contestant all lined up for this week's baseball games.  SO much fun getting back into baseball.

Thanks to Robinson Canó I've been hearing a lot of my favorite sound.

Now if only Manchester United weren't touring China this summer...

GO MARINERS!!!