Weekend at Pebble Beach Wine & Food

For the weekend, we went to Carmel for the Pebble Beach Food & Wine, a grand event in the food and wine world. Of course as you drive north from Los Angeles, there are many wine temptations along the way and we gave in; we picked up a lot of wines for the weekend; some familiar and some new, since we were going to cook there and we needed wines.

A new discovery for me was the Vina Robles Red 4, $16.00 (51% Petite Syrah, 43% Syrah, 4% Tannat and 2% Touriga, a Portuguese varietal similar to Merlot), a bone dry and very delicious red wine filled with blackberries, cherries and currants. Loved it!

On Saturday we went to Pebble Beach for the food and wine festival. This was my first time at this festival, although our friends and family who came with us had attended it before and they have been bragging about it for the whole year. My hat’s off to the organizers. I don’t think you can have a more beautiful place to hold a wine tasting and they had done a GREAT job of putting together a grand event. There must have been five thousand people there along with hundreds of wineries pouring wines and dozens of chefs putting out bite size morsels of their creations.

Regarding the food, I was not impressed with the quality and the creativity of what was being served. I realize that these were mass produced for the 5000 people who were there and the chefs and the sous chefs were working very hard to serve the hungry and sometimes drunk masses, but the food could have been better.

As to the wines, once again, maybe I am jaded and have tasted a lot of wines; I attend many trade wine tasting events almost on a weekly bases, but I was not impressed with what was being poured. Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of good wines being poured on Saturday, but nothing excited me, with few noted exceptions.

• Donkey & Goat, a small winery out of Berkeley, yes Berkeley, CA, with very interesting and enjoyable wines.
• Morlet Family Vineyards, delicious wines, on a grander scale coming from Napa and Sonoma, with matching prices, but nevertheless wonderful, delicious and classy wines.
• Paraiso Vineyards from Santa Lucia Highlands with their Pinot Noirs and in particular their 2008 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir was simply delicious; it had all the elements in the right amount specially the nose. It was great.

This was a wonderful weekend to get away with family and friends and enjoyed it tremendously. After all when we are with our loved ones and there is plenty of food and wine, it doesn’t matter where we are. We are blesses and we should be grateful!

Random Thoughts!

Why can’t people say “no” anymore? Is it because they are afraid to commit and they think they will come across rude or judgmental.

If at first you don’t succeed, have a glass of wine, and see where the mistakes were and learn from it.

Don’t take no for an answer.

Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

“Your Questions, Your Money Live” is a great show on Fox Business Saturday mornings.

I love reading the Weekend Edition of the Financial Times. Great news, great insights from the world of food, wine, art, music, travel, restaurants, fashion, books, business, poetry; great perspectives from all over the world.

Insights on...Missed Opportunity

Insights on…
By: Stepan W. Baghdassarian, December 10, 2006

My friend Deborah Shames wrote the following:

“MISSED OPPORTUNITY: The holiday season is typically a time for vacation travel and social functions – but don’t overlook it for generating new business. Corporate and networking parties offer an opportunity to stay in front of colleagues, cement existing business relationships, and nurture new ones. Approach people you haven’t seen in awhile. During the conversation, put your full attention on them. (Nothing is more frustrating than speaking to someone who is scanning the room!) Ask probing questions. Be a good listener. Offer to provide a resource or connection that would be beneficial to them. And share a client anecdote, especially if it reveals a new aspect of your business.”

What Deborah is saying is very true and equally applicable in our personal relationships as well. A missed opportunity is a missed opportunity and it is never coming back.

In the song “Missed Opportunities” Hall & Oates wrote
“Keep on missing each other Our world's out of orderAll I see is missed opportunity.

The story is that Hall & Oates wrote this song after they missed meeting Elvis. Soon afterwards Elvis died.

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but I am making a point. If there is someone you would like to meet, just to have that person as a friend, send a Charismas card, invite them to a party that you’re having or your business is having. For the next two weeks, I will be attending at least one or two Holiday functions every night. These are great opportunities for me and I love going to these events and seeing old friends and meeting new people and getting to know them.

As my friend Chien J. Wang says “It’s not who you know, but who knows you.” Get to be known by others for something you do, for your area of specialization, for the resource you can be not only for the people who know you, but for their friends, colleagues and clients. Here the concept of MySpace is right on point. We gather “friends” and get on their pages. Now not only we are “friends” with those people but we are also available and accessible to their friends’ friends and they are equally accessible to us which presents us with great opportunities that hopefully we will not miss.
Special Quote: “What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down” Mary Pickford (1893- 1979)
”Merry Christmas & Happy New Year”

I hope you enjoyed reading this blurb and please pass it on to others if you think they will enjoy reading it as well. I will send out similar blurbs from time to time. Send me your thoughts and comments.

Thanks

Stepan W. Baghdassarian


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