It almost felt like a regular day, we were going out to see some family, then kind of a day trip and finally out for dinner.  My Bride was going to meet some of her family at one of her sister’s home and do water aerobics in their pool.  My Bride is going great guns with her new health regimen and now she is down to the size of when we met and got married.  I on the other hand have steadily shown signs of being happily married and then compound that with some medical side affects and let us say that I am more than a few pounds over the weight when we met, or even we married.  We had lunch at her sister’s house with all the others that attended and then we were off on potentially an adventure.  We were going to get new phone upgrades from our provider, but we could only go to two locations in the state and the closest one was almost two hours away, with no way to guarantee that when we got there, that there would be new phones available, so my Bride was in kind of a holding pattern on her mood.  Thankfully all was good and it went relatively smoothly and painlessly, in comparison to another couple that also made the trip from our home city and left empty handed for a couple of reasons and they were not happy.  I didn’t realize how far we were, because my Bride is the road warrior of the family or I would have suggested another restaurant to try, but all was good, because she really wanted to go to Rocky’s again. 

At her sister’s home, we had a nice barbecue lunch of grilled Bratwursts, Cheeseburgers and Hamburgers.  There were also plenty of sides, because people that attended the water aerobics brought sides like fruit salad, potato salad, Cole Slaw and Macaroni salad.  There was plenty of food and enough to eat to hold us over until dinner time.  When we got to Rocky’s, thankfully we had a reservation, because since they can only be operating at fifty percent, they were filling up quite well.  Rocky’s could probably run at full capacity, because it is a mature clientele and even at the bar, not a crowd of hard drinkers like at the two bars that were written up for not doing social distancing, perhaps if they had announced at those two locations that they were protesting there would have been no writeups.  At Rocky’s it was all done in proper style, walking in with a mask, until we were seated and you could have swung a two by four around and not hit the diners at the next closet table.  We both knew that we wanted the Black Bean Soup and we even ordered a quart of it to go, trust me, it is that good and worth the trip.  My Bride had the Potato encrusted Whitefish with a Lemon Sauce and fresh vegetables and I went with the Broiled Shrimps Casino with Basmati Rice and fresh vegetables. 

We also took a bottle of wine with us to her sister’s house, especially because after the water aerobicize my Bride deserved something cold and special.  I turns out that I had a second bottle of Russian Hill Chardonnay Gail Ann’s Vineyard Russian River Valley 2007.  Patrick Melley is a self-taught winemaker and co-founder of Russian Hill and Talawind Ranch wineries.  He went from the restaurant industry to making wine himself, back in 1989 he started making wine at home, and then in 1993 he co-founded Benicia Cellars Winery.  In 1997, he and his partners moved to the Russian River Valley and founded Russian Hill Estate Winery.  I couldn’t find any winemaking notes on this wine, but it was the tenth year that the winery was in existence. The good news is that the cork in this bottle was solid and I poured a wine that also had a deep amber-gold color, looking more like an aged Sauternes. Whereas the first bottle that we had, the nose was light, this bottle still offered some fruit and spice and the taste was subtle with some flavor of terroir, but the finish still evoked alcohol.  It actually was a beautiful drinking wine, and more flavorful compared to the first bottle.  After all the running around and we were resting at Rocky’s I picked out a very easy drinking white for us to relax with.  We had a split of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2018.  Kim Crawford is probably the most recognized wine producer from New Zealand and its Sauvignon Blanc is the most popular wine from New Zealand sold in the United States of America.  Kim Crawford began in 1996 in Auckland and built a state-of-the-art facility in Marlborough in 2000.  In 2003 the brand was sold to the Canadian firm Vincor and the following year Vincor was acquired by Constellation Brands.  Kim Crawford was also one of the first in New Zealand to produce an unoaked Chardonnay.  Marlborough is the most important wine region in New Zealand and Sauvignon Blanc account for almost eighty percent of the production.  The wine is very fruity with a nose promising passion fruit, melons and some spice, with a taste of fresh fruit and acidity and a pleasant finish that kind of beckons another glassful.  All in all, it was a most enjoyable day with a couple of charming wines.