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Wine for Beginners

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This post will explain how to get into wines for the enjoyment and social benefit for all involved and will motivate the reader to start quaffing wine with educated enthusiasm.

Wine for Beginners

Is anyone else a bit embarrassed to admit that they know, like, nothing about wine? I’m a gainfully employed, educated grownup and I seriously have no idea what to do when a hostess asks me to grab a bottle to bring to supper. I can thank my wonderful parents for teaching me about craft beers, homegrown beef, and canning, but when it comes to wine I am woefully late to the party. I knew I could not possibly be the only gal out there and I thought my Wildflower readers would appreciate a little introductory guide to wine.

Let me introduce you to the perfect person to bring us into the wine fold. My friend Jenny (we have been calling each other “the other Jenny” since we met 15 years ago) is what I would consider my kind of wine enthusiast. She never has her nose in the air about anything, she’s totally practical, whip-smart, and she likes wine. She’s also a great sport and when I asked her to write a guest post, she had it done and another planned in no time.

 

Here is Jenny Zink’s guide to wine for beginners:

Wine Drinking for Beginners: A Guide for the Girl Who Knows Nothing About Wine | The Domestic Wildflower click to read this hilarious and helpful post about how to get into drinking wine and how to avoid feeling unsure overtime you are invited to dinner.

When I first thought about the possibility of writing a wine post I was a little apprehensive. Let’s face it: I usually write about marketing and data analysis, which is not nearly as fun a drinking wine! But then I thought every post I have ever read by a certified expert has gone way over my head. If you’re like me you probably just want to hear from someone who can talk, using normal language, about wine. I think most of us are probably just moms or dads that after a long day want to be able to have a glass of something other than Franzia. So if you are a sommelier, please stop reading now. What follows will most certainly give you an aneurysm and then you will roll over in your grave at least 3 times before you reach the end. Everyone else, please proceed.

 

Wine Journaling

Let’s talk about journaling. I don’t mean you have to write a long story about how you got the wine or what you were doing when you were drinking it.  With the vast number of different types of wine paired with the fact that wines can vary dramatically depending on the winemaker, it is extremely helpful if you have some sort of way to help you remember what you liked and what you didn’t. I am horrible at this because really after a glass or two or three of wine who’s going to remember to go get a piece of paper and write it down anyways? What I found helpful is to take a picture of the bottle and use a rating. I have a friend who has a notebook that is separated out into the different varietals and she keeps notes in there but for me, I need it digitally so I have it when I need it. Bottom line, if you really want to start to get to know your wines you really do need to write down. Keep it simple what did you like and what didn’t you like. It will also be fun to see how your taste buds progress!

Wine Drinking for Beginners: A Guide for the Girl Who Knows Nothing About Wine | The Domestic Wildflower click to read this hilarious and helpful post about how to get into drinking wine and how to avoid feeling unsure overtime you are invited to dinner.

Wine Tours

The thing I did that really started to spur my interest in wine was a local wine tour. I highly recommend if you’re interested in wine to find a tour so you can go on a wine tasting adventure. Preferably one that’s not in Napa, the mother of all wine tasting experiences. The wineries there are too established and touristy, in my opinion, for it to be a great learning experience. Napa is placed to go after you have some knowledge under your belt or if you just want to go on a girl vacation and drink lots of wine.

 

For learning sake, look for one in an up-and-coming wine area. What’s nice about going on a wine tour especially if they’re going to take you to small wineries is that there’s a high probability that you will get to meet the actual winemakers and they have a wealth of knowledge and are truly passionate about what they do.  

 

I went on the wine trolley that leaves from Seven Feathers in Oregon. We went to a couple larger wineries that had good wine and knowledgeable pourers. But the real gems were the small wineries that we went to. One, in particular, I was a little leery of as we were driving down an old bumpy road and pulled up to their barn. First I thought this trolley is never getting out of this driveway but I figured if you are going to get stuck anywhere may as well be with a barn full of wine! But it was one of the best experiences I’ve had and one that spurred my further interest in the wine industry. In this little barn, the most valuable thing I learned from the man who makes the wine is about the pairing. He told me that there’s a lot of science behind pairing wine with food. He explained a lot of it, that was far too technical for me to remember. But he said this, “Drink wine with your food. If it tastes good to do it again; if it doesn’t don’t do that again and try something different”. I definitely laughed out loud. It sounds simple but when faced with the daunting task of what wine do you drink with what this seemed like a reasonable answer. That’s what so cool about getting to talk to the small time winemakers. They are super passionate about wine. They aren’t at the uber winemaker level where they don’t have time to talk to you. AND they can talk to you and in plain English about the wine and how you can slowly start to build your own knowledge.  

Wine Drinking for Beginners: A Guide for the Girl Who Knows Nothing About Wine | The Domestic Wildflower click to read this hilarious and helpful post about how to get into drinking wine and how to avoid feeling unsure overtime you are invited to dinner.

Wine Pairing

I’m by no means an expert at wine pairing mostly because I’m horrible at keeping track of those kinds of details, as we learned with my lack of journaling ability. But I use a general rule of thumb that I think is valuable for pairing wines: go with the color. White wines go with white meat red wines go with red meat. Sweet wines go with cake. And that’s all I do folks. Once you’ve started to pair your wines with your food you’ll be able to tell that you don’t like Merlot with pork and that you love a Chardonnay with your tilapia. What is the science behind that? I have no idea but I’m sure there are some bloggers out there who will give you the highfalutin explanation of how you pick which one to go with which dish. For the rest of us, the color is a good standby.

 

Wine Clubs

For years and years, I thought I can’t afford to join the wine club because I thought they cost thousands of dollars a month. But, it seems like with the rise of the internet winemakers have got onboard with the idea that the average Jane would also like to be in a wine club.

 

I’m a member of nakedwines.com.  Hold the phone that doesn’t mean we’re drinking naked that’s just the name of the company. The reason why I decided to join this particular club is that it supports small independent winemakers that are trying to get their start. You get a lot of wines from emerging wine regions. You will also get a few wines from overseas like Italy, France, and Australia. I like it because it’s $40 a month but you don’t get a bottle of wine every month instead you put your $40 in and you can save up until you have enough to purchase a case. Members are called Angels because we’re supporting small wineries and helping them grow their businesses.

 

The other cool thing, if you’re like me and you flounder when trying to pick what you want, you can email them and ask them to build a custom case for your tastes. BINGO! You can email them and say I hate Chardonnay, I love Riesling and I like to try other types that are not common. The other awesome thing – it’s delivered to your door. Seriously my last order came the next day. Don’t ask me how that happened since I live in the Boondocks but I swear it has to be something to do with the fact that the Universe knew I better not run out of wine.

Wine Drinking for Beginners: A Guide for the Girl Who Knows Nothing About Wine | The Domestic Wildflower click to read this hilarious and helpful post about how to get into drinking wine and how to avoid feeling unsure overtime you are invited to dinner.

Wine Friends

Before I go, I have to say, get some wine friends. Drinking wine is always more fun with friends! But also you can talk about the wine with friends. Remind each other not to get a wine rut – where you really like Merlot so that is all you drink. Help each other branch out. Help each remember to write down that you hated that wine with the dog on it or that you loved that one with the two birds. Someone or a few someones who will be just as excited as you are when you find a new wine that loves. Wine friends are good.

Now go forth and explore new wines! – and get the journal going 🙂

Lockers for Organizing

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In this post I will show how I put an old set of lockers in a place in my home lots of people wouldn’t expect and I’ll share how totally useful they are in what might be the busiest room of the house.

Lockers for Organizing

Nope, I didn’t put them in the kitchen 😉 When the school where I teach English was changing things up in the locker room and I saw the banks of seafoam green lockers that held my gym shoes as a 7th & 8th grader up for grabs, I jumped on the opportunity to bring them home with me even though I had zero plan of where to put them.

 

What I mean by “bring them home” is I sent my husband to collect them. What followed was a none-too-thrilled phone call where he asked me if I knew how heavy those lockers were. I told him that I truly had no idea how heavy they were. My thinking is typical that husbands and dads can lift and fix anything. Call me old fashioned but I was a bit surprised to find out that they were in fact really, really heavy. This brings me to my first point of advice for when you rustle up your own set.

 

Lockers are heavy. Plan accordingly. You may need an extra person, a dolly, and probably a pickup.

 

They were wrangled home and then I took about a whole season to decide where to put them. I thought they’d be hidden on my porch, out of sight and where the dog would get to enjoy them the most. I thought for a long time they’d be most useful in my laundry room/pantry area that I refer to as a “back porch” Let me digress a moment- who else calls the mudroom/laundry room/pantry area a back porch? I know I’m not the only one, Wildflowers. Language is so fascinating 🙂

 

I vetoed the back porch idea because space was tight as it was and they measure 13 inches deep by 38 inches wide.

 

In our home, there is a sort of strange nook in the bathroom that as luck would have it measures about 40 inches wide. I had a wicker hamper sitting there but it really wasn’t maximizing the storage potential in our modest home.

 

Once I decided, and some manly-man friends were visiting to help move them in, I wiped them down and made room for the guys to bring them in.

 

Now, our single bathroom is storing ALL of the towels. All of them. AND it is conveniently next to the shower which is obviously better. I also have 4-bed pillows in the tall locker, which is the BEST place ever to store extra pillows. Before they were stuffed onto shelves to only fall out again.

 

When you get your lockers in place, here’s tip #2.

 

Anchor lockers to the wall.

 

My husband screwed them to the stud, through an existing hole in the lockers. Now, they are safely in place and I simply can’t clean behind them. Double win.

 

The worry my husband had about putting the lockers inside the house was a valid one since we have small kids. He worried that they would smash their fingers in the many tantalizing doors and/or put one another into the tall locker and the result would be more smashed fingers and a lot of crying out of everyone.

 

We remedied this with a couple of steps. I said I would get pretty locks (skeleton keys I think they are called) for the bottom lockers if the kids played with them too much. My husband drilled a hole from the top of the tall locker down through the door of the tall locker and dropped a nail into the holes, effectively locking it shut. Pillows in, children out. I haven’t had the pleasure of finding pretty locks because the novelty has worn off and no fingers have been smashed.

Tip #3:

Lock it up. No, YOU lock it up!

 

(Double points for catching the Wedding Crashers reference).

 

So there’s my upcycle gem of the season. My towels don’t smell like gym socks, by the way. Metal is SO great for cleaning; a hot rag once-over was all it took to get the bathroom ready.

Lockers Aren't Just for Mudrooms

Do any of my dear readers have lockers in unexpected places? An unusual upcycle? Share in the comments below!

Grow Like a Wildflower 4 Week Creativity Challenge

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I challenge you Wildflowers to plan out 4 different creative tasks, one for each week of the month, and execute them for the love of all that is handmade, homemade, and self made. Read on for details!

Grow Like a Wildflower 4 Week Creativity Challenge | A Domestic Wildflower click to join this fun creativity challenge where you plan our 4 different creative pursuits for each week of a month! You'll get private Facebook group access and support, 5 inspiring emails to help you keep on track, and the best part is you will complete 4 projects in a month! Click to join now!

This is my very first challenge, Wildflowers. Lots of challenges I have seen are focused on getting rid of something (lose 10 pounds in a month, clean out your closet in 21 days…) but this one will be targeted towards gaining something that I’m sure you will be glad you made time for.

 

I want to spend our month with a weekly focus where we tackle a craft, skill, task, project, or other domestic pursuit. It can be something you haven’t ever tried before or something you have started but put on the back burner and haven’t resumed. It can be working with diligence on a big project. For example, I have a huge afghan I started and then I had a baby…two years ago, and that I never worked on again. For one of the weeks during the challenge month, I could set time aside to make encouraging headway. Many times, it is the size of the project that prevents us from getting started, right? The weekly focus could also be completing something that you just haven’t made time for yet. I have a quilt that is almost done except I have to sew on the binding. This has been ready for me to tackle for over 18 months.

 

I also think it is important to get started now, as Spring is underway here in the Northern hemisphere (and conversely, Fall is beginning in the Southern) that was we make other changes naturally in our lives like our wardrobe, cleaning, and eating routines, we incorporate positive creative habits as well.

 

So, we will take several days to plan out your challenge month. Take stock of your sewing cupboard, your knitting bag, your junk drawer, your mending pile, your empty mason jars, your appetite, and your desires. If time allows, challenge yourself to learn or try something completely new each week. Just think, at the end of the month, you will have completed a project, learned a thing or two that was completely new to you, and expanded your knowledge or experience in something you enjoy. Pretty awesome, right?  

Guidelines:

  1. It can be a new or acquired skill.
  2. It can be working on or completing a project.
  3. It can be something you have done before but rarely make time for now.
  4. It can be taking a class and implementing what you learn.
  5. Try to make each week something different. I could fill a month (A year, even!) with sewing projects but that wouldn’t be very varied nor would it expand my skills. Shoot for a variety of tasks!
  6. Let’s say that cleaning-related tasks should only account for one week. This is supposed to be fun, remember? 🙂
  7. Share your successes with those you love, your fellow Wildflowers in the Facebook group, on Instagram or Twitter with the tag #adwchallenge ,  in the comment section of this blog post, with the friendly gal at the yarn shop- wherever your heart desires, share it!

 

Prepare the week before: Complete the free PDF guide in our resource library and plan it out! Failure to prepare is preparing to fail, said someone wise, and it is true. If you don’t put it in writing, you are much less likely to complete it. You also need to complete the PDF so you have an idea of the things you need to rustle up to complete your project. If you need matching thread, a haul of produce to ferment, or a specific crochet hook, this is the week to get it. You should encourage an in-person friend to join you if you have similar interests or if you are going to attend a class. Those things are so much more fun in a group.

Grow Like a Wildflower 4 Week Creativity Challenge | A Domestic Wildflower click to join this fun creativity challenge where you plan our 4 different creative pursuits for each week of a month! You'll get private Facebook group access and support, 5 inspiring emails to help you keep on track, and the best part is you will complete 4 projects in a month! Click to join now!
Enroll, grab your PDF, and start planning!

After you have downloaded your PDF, you are automatically invited to our private Facebook group where we will be sharing our successes, encouraging one another to finish our challenge items, and loving the contagious vibe of creativity. I swear it is true; I worked in a fabric store for 5 years in college and now I know creativity is absolutely contagious in the very best way. Being around others (even in a virtual setting) can be SO inspiring.

 

You will be responsible for tackling the week’s project on a timeline that works for you and for either commenting on this blog post, sharing in the Facebook group, Instagram or Twitter with #adwchallenge . Don’t forget, I’m a teacher by trade and I am pretty good at asking for homework, Wildflowers. I want to see you achieve your goals!

Okay, so are you ready to have a creative, satisfying month? Let’s Spring into creativity, Wildflowers!

  
 

Plan out your month, Wildflowers! We will start together on April 4th!

#adwchallenge

PS- if you are already an email subscriber, be a dear and enter your info one more time. I know you won’t get double emails, but I can’t figure out how to enroll you without making you enter it again. I’m sorry! I’m learning all kinds of blogging things every day but the tech stuff remains hazy at times. Thank you!

As an email subscriber, you are already invited to our private facebook group which has already been buzzing with fun project ideas. Hop on and see for yourself! If Pinterest is more your speed, you also can pin with abandon on our group board, and can be a great place to find inspiration if you are stuck on finding a week’s project for this challenge. Both are fun communities and I want everyone to “catch” what I’ve been happily afflicted with for years. Join in!

 

Guide to Vintage Telephones

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Guide to Vintage Telephones

 

If you are like me, you love all things old and beautiful. Vintage telephones are an item you could buy that would add instant retro beauty and functionality to your home. I interviewed the best expert I could find on vintage telephones to help you all know exactly what to look for when shopping for one of these gems. Read on for a comprehensive list of vintage telephone information, tips for shopping, and tricks for bringing home a working vintage telephone of your very own.

 

I interviewed Jason Hartong of Hartong International. His Etsy shop sells gorgeous antiques from all over the world, including vintage telephones. Jason shared with me his knowledge gained from years of experience working in the antique industry and earning relevant, advanced degrees. Why he so kindly told me (and you!) EVERYTHING you need to know about vintage telephones, I have no idea, but I am very grateful indeed. If fine antiques are your weakness, head to his Etsy shop. It is a feast for vintage loving eyes for sure.   

 

The earliest telephones were known as candlesticks, standing upright, with a separate earpiece. Telephones didn’t have rotary dials until late in the 1910s. A girl could still use these earliest candlestick types of phones in the home but note that they only can receive a call, not place one. Candlesticks were so well made that it is very possible to find a working one today.

Vintage Telephone 101: Guide to Buying Vintage Telephones | A Domestic Wildflower click through to read this thorough and helpful post! It explains what to look for in a vintage telephone, which types to snap up and which to pass on, and where and how to spruce up the vintage gem you find!
Photo courtesy of Jason Hartong. 1915 Northern Electric telephone with oak ringer box.

In the 1920’s the styles of telephones changed (hello Roaring Twenties!) and featured the Art Deco (more rounded) styles and the handset that we would be more familiar with today with the receiver and microphone in one piece. Until the late 1930s, all telephones had a separate metal or wooden (oak or walnut usually) box that held the ringer. The telephone rested on a side table or a telephone table while the ringer box was mounted to the wall or a baseboard.

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Facebook Group for the Domestic Wildflower Subscribers

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Join the Grow Like a Wildflower Facebook group!

I have created a private facebook group for all the Domestic Wildflower email subscribers and I’m so excited to invite you all to participate!

 

I remember reading a great mini tutorial for the uninitiated about social media platforms. Twitter is a one sentence snapshot of what I’m doing right now, Instagram is a (nicely edited) photo of what I’m doing now, Pinterest is who I plan to be, and Facebook is what I’m doing right now in as many sentences or photos as you’d like.

 

When I was starting to learn to can, I looked high and low for facebook groups that would be sharing recipes, advice, class lists, etc. and found lots of groups that were frequented by people who don’t frequent facebook often. It sounds strange but it makes sense. Facebook’s fastest growing population is those over 55, and those people aren’t online as often. I remember asking a question and the sweet member replied after a week, thoroughly of course and everything was properly spelled and punctuated, which I appreciated, but it wasn’t the kind of community that was thriving and full of people like me. It was full of people who already know how to do all the things I want to learn about and they weren’t online all that often.

 

So in the back of my mind, I have been thinking for a long time now that there was a need for a group for those interested in learning more about canning, sewing, and other fun, old fashioned DIY that I love to share on this blog and beyond.

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