A lifestyle blog by Allison Arbuthnot on The Whole 9

Allison was raised on the vine in Sonoma, California, and believes that life is too short to drink bad wine, count calories, or second-guess your destiny. She now lives in Los Angeles where she practices many things, the two most important being contentment and tricks for opening a wine bottle without a wine key.

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Monthly Archives: June 2010

Our Right to Wine

June 28, 2010
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In an old apartment which I shared with a couple of girlfriends there was a wooden plaque above the refrigerator that read something along the lines of, “A good friend knows when to listen, when to stop listening, when to talk, when to stop talking, when to pour wine, and when to stop pouring and [...]

The Mystery of the Crustaceous Zin

June 19, 2010
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My father Bob is perhaps Rosenblum Cellars’ most loyal customer.  For years, he’s been buying and drinking and extolling the virtues of their various Zinfandels sourced from all over California, Paso Robles to Livermore to Lake County.  During his last visit to San Francisco while I was still living there, we ventured over the Bay [...]

A Cherry Pie Day

June 14, 2010
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You’d think I was riding my bike down one of the many poor-excuse-for-pavement country roads of northern Santa Barbara County, foggy ocean breezes just beginning to flow from the west over the Solomon Hills into Santa Maria Valley and through my hair.  You’d think I was kicking up dust as I kicked down my kickstand, [...]

Getting There at Bernardus

June 9, 2010
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Twenty minutes before we were due to leave for the hike, it started raining.  We knew it was coming; the morning sun’s fleecy warmth had slowly given way to a zip-up, leaf-green fleece as the clouds crawled over Carmel Valley from the Pacific Ocean like dry ice from a bucket, chilling the air with moisture [...]