Jason and I went hiking up the Romero Canyon trail – and ran into Laura Sanchez of the magazine Destination Wine Country. I’ve written a few articles for the publication and so I pitched Laura on a few story ideas and we chatted about how things are going at the magazine. She gave me the news that Destination Wine Country was re-designing its website and should launch the new site soon. After our hike, Jason and I came home and cooled off with the 2007 Carr Pinot Gris. This un-oaked wine (aged in stainless steel for 5 months) has tart apple and mineral notes. The Carr tasting room is located on the Urban Wine Trail, right in downtown Santa Barbara. If you happen to be in town, stop by to taste wines from a number of small production labels.  After we got cleaned up after our hike, we headed down the street to watch the Super Bowl with our neighbors Jo and Daniel and their friends from Los Angeles, Courtney and Mike. We brought along bottles to share, the 2004 Red Head Ranch Zinfandel (Paso Robles) and the 2006 Cleb Syrah of Rose (Santa Barbara). The 2006 Cleb Syrah Rosé is a wonderful, dry Rosé – with so much character and complexity it is like a pink wine masquerading as a red one. The 2004 Red Head Ranch is one of our favorite old vine Zinfandels because of its condensed, bold cherry jam and spice flavors. It has an amazingly long finish and paired really well with Super Bowl chili! There were only 362 cases of this wine made – which is too bad, because it is awesome! The 2006 Cleb Syrah Rosé is a wonderful, dry Rosé – with so much character and complexity it seems to be masquerading as a red wine. From what gleaned from the loud outbursts from the guys, the Super Bowl was a very exciting one – I quite frankly was more interested in the wine (and the commercials). Go team!