About Jean Yates

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So far Jean Yates has created 13 blog entries.

DVQ Spring 2022

DVQ Q1 Countrymen, Colleagues, and Customers; I was reading through previous issues of this newsletter in order to remember what I’d written so as to not be a bore. I live in mortal terror of being found a bore. I am of an age that I can reasonably surmise that everyone I know, and some I don’t, have heard every anecdote, war story, and one of the three jokes I can remember at least four times. You need not have the greatest intellect to imagine what poor Dragon Six must have to live through. I have tried to make it a mental habit that before I decide to launch into one of these chestnuts I take a quick survey of my audience and attempt to gauge how likely I am to stupefy them. More often [...]

DVQ Spring 20222022-04-04T20:34:25+00:00

DVQ Winter 2021

DVQ Q4 2021 Here it is after Thanksgiving and staring down another December. We are in that liminal space between Turkey Day and Christmas Day. We, as in the royal We, haven’t put up the holiday decorations as of yet, but I did manage to polish off the last of the Thanksgiving cheesecake just this morning. Everything in due time, one supposes.  The vineyard is in that space as well. I’ve not stepped foot in the vineyard since harvest. That doesn’t mean the work has stopped; there’s still a couple of weekends for the tasting room to be open. We are hashing out the last details for the final club pick up party of the season and trying to not think of next year. Next year can take care of itself, as far as I’m concerned. Now is the [...]

DVQ Winter 20212022-11-30T14:51:52+00:00

DVQ Q1 2021 News

DVQ Q1 2021 Well, friends, here we are in 2021.  Speaking for myself, I’m having a hard time differentiating between the two. If anything, it’s like 21 has a bet with 20 that it could be even more tumultuous. “Cute pandemic you got there. I’ll see that and raise you an insurrection.” It boggles the mind. At least it does mine. We find ourselves spending this February much as we did the last. If one thinks about it, it could remind one of a sort of Groundhog’s February. Let us all hope that every month this year isn’t just a replay of the month from last year. I’m sure they won’t be, at least not all of them. There has to be an exit to this tunnel, and that exit will be egressed through this year. Of that I’m [...]

DVQ Q1 2021 News2021-04-03T19:40:44+00:00

Pete’s Autumn 2020 Wine Club Newsletter

Our club release has been rescheduled to the weekend before Thanksgiving, November 20, 21 and 22. We will be releasing both the summer and the fall pickup wines at the same time. Our summer pick up included one Sweet Dragon Semi-sweet Riesling, one Dragon’s Kiss Rosé of Pinot Noir and our 2018 Dragons Lair Pinot Noir. The fall pick up will include one 2017 Crystal Dragon Chardonnay, one 2017 Dragon’s Lair Pinot Noir and one of our newly released 2018 Dragon’s Revenge Pinot Noir Select. If you prefer a substitution in the selection of wines let me know two weeks in advance and we will gladly accommodate your wishes. We will send out more particulars as the event gets closer. DVQ Q4 2020 Compadres; Never have I looked forward more to a holiday than I do the upcoming New Year’s [...]

Pete’s Autumn 2020 Wine Club Newsletter2021-04-03T19:42:16+00:00

Dragon 6’s Braised Lamb Recipe

Download a pdf of the recipe This recipe was chosen because it pairs well with any of the 3 wines in your club pick-up, really. Ingredients: 3 to 4 lamb shanks 1 medium onion 1 C chopped celery 1 C chopped carrot 3 to 4 cloves garlic minced 1C dry red wine 11/2   C chicken stock 1 cup chopped tomato ½ C fresh chopped cilantro Seasonings: 1T cumin 1t rosemary 1t thyme 1 t cardamom or 2 to 3 pods ½ t chili flakes or more if you like it spicy Salt and pepper to taste Directions In a Dutch sear meat in oil on all sides on medium high heat until nicely browned Remove meat and set aside Reduce temperature to low In the same pan add the spices and [...]

Dragon 6’s Braised Lamb Recipe2020-09-30T14:47:58+00:00

Pete’s Autumn 2020 Newsletter

Autumn, 2020 About once a month we get together with the other local winery owners. We take the open bottles that we’ve been using for tasting (they won’t keep until the next weekend), some cheese, some crackers, and some bonhomie. We talk shop, catch up, and compare notes. It is a pleasant and gastronomically gratifying diversion since most vineyard people are also very much into their food. So Sunday evening found us with our friends at Blue Bird Hill Cellars, sampling the wines, eating ceviche (a stretch from cheese and crackers, but we’d never complain) and just generally letting our hair down after the rigors of running a tasting room for five hours. For those of you who haven’t been there, Blue Bird is actually on a Hill. We enjoyed watching the sun gradually set in our beautiful West, the [...]

Pete’s Autumn 2020 Newsletter2020-09-15T18:08:05+00:00

Fall 2020 Kahleesi Wine Club Newsletter

Greetings Valued Club Members; All of our customers are valued and appreciated. But maybe, just maybe, our club members are appreciated just a tiny bit more. Just a hair. Not much, but enough. And that’s why I’m going to let you in on the latest development here at Dragon’s Vineyard and Wine Company before anyone else. Anyone besides me remember 2018? Blissfully COVID19 free, we ran around right next to each other and stood arm-in-arm, sans masks, and picked the nine tons of grapes that the vineyard proudly produced for us, courtesy of none other than Dragon Six. It was also the year of The Smoke Taint (I, for one, do not believe that Smoke Taint is a real issue. You are, for at least the reds, going to take all that juice and put it into a barrel that [...]

Fall 2020 Kahleesi Wine Club Newsletter2020-09-07T21:36:50+00:00

Fall 2020 Newsletter

DVQ for the third quarter in the Year of Corona Greetings Friends, Aficionados, and Fellow Wine Travelers; Returning to an earlier theme that I’ve explored in another quarterly, it would seem that my sense of time has not only eroded as regards hours, days, weeks, and months, but it now extends to quarters. I hereby give up the pretense; this is a quarterly newsletter in name only. So be it. Has your summer been as unusual as ours? I would imagine so. When the lockdown first started, one thousand years ago in March, our attitude was, “that’s cute, now back to the shoot thinning.” It really had little impact on us at first, outside of the eating/drinking/sleeping/sloth/gluttony/avarice to excess that I’m sure we were alone in indulging in. We kept our trips to town to a minimum. We finished the [...]

Fall 2020 Newsletter2020-09-02T17:50:48+00:00

Dragon’s Vineyard opens tasting room

By Edie Moro Reprinted with permission by the Tribune News Publisher Pam Petersdorf Published May 28, 2020 When Dragon’s Vineyard and Wine Company owner and winemaker Trudy Salerno finally received the tasting room’s OLCC license on Friday, May 15, she announced to her husband, Pete, that she wanted to open for the Memorial Day week-end, only a week away. With the help of friends Tommy Houston and Bill Woodki, both of whom served in the military with Pete, they have been busy stocking the tasting room and putting into place protocols for following the “COVID Covenant.” Pete, who was an English major in college, announced the opening in an email newsletter that went out to fans of Dragon’s wines, showing his sense of humor, “Well, it’s here. The awaited, anointed hour; the grand opening of the tasting room. To say [...]

Dragon’s Vineyard opens tasting room2020-08-26T18:39:44+00:00
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