1986 Dow's Quinta do Bomfim Porto Review

As promised, here's my 1986 Quinta do Bomfim Porto review. Disclaimer: I am not a professional reviewer. These are my feelings and as such are absolutely 100% correct...for me. Your results may vary. After giving the porto over an hour to breathe, I took my first sip. The first sip was very nice. There were strong berry notes. It was smooth, especially since Wine Spectator said that 1997 was the time to drink it at its peak. It had a medium length finish. This porto was very good. The porto was actually even better when I had some more later. It opened up a bit more displaying a little more complexity. I'd say that this is one of the best portos I've ever drank. Now, I know I have at least 10-12 better bottles in my collection, but they won't be ready to drink for at least 5 years for some, most won't be ready for over ten years. Some won't be ready for twenty - thirty years. So, this is one of the best vintage ports I'll probably drink for a few years(one of the few also). I can't wait to see what the other vintages have to offer.

Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas is here and is almost over, in fact. The last few days have been non stop celebrations. Talli and I have had a good time at my grandparents' houses both on Christmas Eve and on Christmas. Tomorrow we'll have to head back to work for a few days, but on Thursday we'll be off to Rome. I can hardly wait! Here's a quick weather update. Sunny on Christmas Eve and rainy on Christmas. What does that mean? The pond temperature is still rising. Pond Temperature: 59 degrees!

Three Year Anniversary

Tonight Talli and I celebrated the third anniversary of In Stride Physical Therapy. To celebrate, we headed to Spago's in Palo Alto. It was a great meal. For a little more info, listen to the audio post below.

Quick Update #2

Everyone keeps asking me, "How are the fish?" The answer is that they all seem fine now. The injured koi seems to be slowly healing. The last remaining yellow koi has a good appetite. The goldfish outside in the pond seem happy. The water temperature just keeps rising. Pond Temperature: 58 Degrees Today is the 3rd Anniversary of In Stride Physical Therapy. We saw our first patient on this day in 2002. Tonight we'll go out to dinner to celebrate. Afterwards, we'll probably have a nice porto that we've been saving. Hey, it's the holiday season after all. A double occasion definitely warrants a special beverage. Tonight's beverage is a bottle of Dow's 1986 Quinta do Bomfim. It's supposed to be a good wine. I'll give an amateur review of it at a later date(when it's all gone :) ). If I don't post again before Christmas, I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, an Amazing Kwanzaa, a Spectacular Solstice and a Happy New Year. If there's a holiday I missed that you celebrate, I intended no slight. Leave a comment with any missing holiday, so that I might include them in a future list.

Look At the Pretty Colors

Sometimes, life seems topsy-turvy. Sometimes, life appears to be ordered and calm. Usually, you're wrong. Either life is so ordered that it seems chaotic or life is so chaotic that it seems to be ordered. Usually, it's the latter. Life is chaos. Chaos is change. Change is good. Therefore, chaos is good. At least it's good in humanly manageable portions. It stimulates growth and learning. That's necessary. When the brain stops learning, it starts dying. When it starts to die, your body will follow. Don't let it. Here's a mental exercise for you. Look at all the pretty colors. Really think about what they are. Then take a guess and leave me a comment. I'll post a blog entry when someone gets it right, or when someone just posts a really interesting answer.

Chinese Pond Dragon

This weekend I spotted the ever elusive Chinese pond dragon. Somehow, it managed to find its way to our pond from its native habitat, which if I remember correctly is Target. It looks great by the pond though, so Talli and I decided that we'd let it stay. If it eats any fish though, it has to go. So far though, it seems to be lucky. Since it arrived, we've had a lot of rain and warmer weather. That's been great for the water temperature. It is actually the warmest it has been since we filled the pond up a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. Current pond temperature: 55 degrees

Firetruck!

Tonight after Talli and I finished dinner we heard sirens wailing outside our house. Naturally we thought that the old coot next door had suffered a heart attack from yelling at someone. We rushed to the window to get a look and what to our wondering eyes should appear, but Jolly Saint Nick...and a whole lot of fire men and women and old style fire trucks. I ran to get my camera and by the time I had it they were gone. I wanted a picture for you all to share though, so I strapped on the running shoes and took off after them. I caught up to them about four blocks away. As a reward, they stopped long enough for me to take this picture, they wished me a Merry Christmas and the nice lady on the back of this truck tossed me a candy cane. Needless to say, I liked the gesture on the part of our local firehouse. It's nice to see the Christmas spirit alive and well somewhere. It restores my faith in people just a bit. The holidays bring out a little of that charity and caring that I sometimes think has died. Thank you so much Fremont Fire Station #1!

Fish Down!

The pictures took me a while to get up, so the news is late. Fish down! Fish down! Yes, another fish down the toilet. We lost the second of the three yellow koi. After disposing of the second koi though a miraculous thing happened. The last yellow koi, the littlest one, came out and joined the other fish. I guess he was done helping the other sick fish. It's been a couple days and he looks good. I think we might have a keeper. I'll wait a few more days though before touting his survival, since he is still a very small koi, but I'm hopeful that he'll make it into the pond this spring. As you can see from the pictures, Hunter has taken the loss very hard. He sniffed quite a lot. I thought about getting him a kleenex, but it seemed that he wanted to eat the fish more than cry about his trip to the ocean... It seems like we're getting down to a more maintainable number of koi and goldfish for our small 800 gallon pond. Hopefully, we'll still have some nice variety when spring arrives.

RSS Feed Available

Well, I know it's taken a while, but I'm adding an RSS feed for those of you who want to take advantage of it. Just copy the link you get when you click on this button on the blog's sidebar. If you don't know how to access RSS feeds, either email me or if you don't have my email, comment on this posting and I'll help you out. Pond Temperature: 53.5 It's still rising!

Floater!

It's time for some sad news...sort of. One of the three yellow koi I rescued from the feeder tank moved on to the ocean today. He went there via the toilet, of course. That's the first loss we've experience since our initial batch of fish. At current count we still have 14 of the 17 fish we acquired. Not too bad. Twelve of those fish are destined for the pond. Actually, four are already in the pond, so only eight are destined for the pond. Five of those are koi and as for how many goldfish there are...you do the math. I'm a little bummed about the fish, but not too much. I don't want the pond to be too crowded. Truth be told, we lost the least attractive of the new fish. The injured fish still isn't healed yet either. We'll have to see how he or she does. Pond temperature: 53 degrees. For the current air temperature, check the blog's sidebar.

New Additions

Well all, it's time for a very quick post. I just want to make a fish/pond update. The three new yellow koi that I pulled out of the feeder tank were added to the 50 gallon aquarium yesterday. Since then, they've been hiding in the coliseum ruins. They haven't eaten since they were put in, but I'm not worried yet. It takes time for fish to acclimate to a new environment. The pond and the fish in it are looking well. The pond temperature as of a couple minutes ago is 53 degrees. It's amazing, the temperature has been steadily rising for about a week now. We'll see how long that trend can continue. I also bought some new food for the pond fish that is supposed to be better in low temperatures. It has less protein and is easier to digest. So far, the fish don't like it much. Hopefully, it'll grow on them.

Table For Two?

The solution to viewing the fish in our very tall above ground pond arrived Monday. It was a bistro set that Talli found on Yardiac.com for a great price. Wednesday, I set the table and chairs up. It took a while to get it all set up. The main delay was all the wrapping. They weren't messing around. It was wrapped like a mummy. Finally, today we were able to sit outside and have lunch by the pond. Here's a shot of Talli enjoying the pond after lunch. The air temperature today was 61 degrees and the pond was up to 51 degrees. Not too bad considering that a couple days before the pond had dipped to 49 degrees.

Vintage Declaration

*Wine update* Many porto houses in Portugal declared the 2003 year as a vintage year for porto wine. What does that mean? On average, only three times in a decade is a vintage year declared. The port wine has to reach a certain quality to be released as a vintage wine. The last year that was declared was the 2000 vintage. Understand what I'm saying? This is a good batch of wines. Now you might be asking, "Why are you talking about the 2003 vintage year now?" Well, the year is not declared until it is judged good enough which can't be done until at least 18 months after harvest. So, the declaration was pretty recent. The timing is due to the fact that I went to BevMo and finally, they were there. Those beautiful vintage ports which only constitute 2% of the grape production of the port houses' grapes. So, I bought a few. Here's the list: Fonseca Taylor Fladgate Croft's Graham's They'll be ready to drink in 30-50 years, so now I just have to sit back and wait. I'm glad I didn't decide to start buying when I turned 80. At that age, I might be pretty impatient.

Christmas Tree?

Christmas tree? Holiday tree? What should I call it? What a pointless issue the news has been posing to us. It's a Christmas tree! If I call it a holiday tree, it's still a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree by any other name is still a Christmas tree, right? Well, Talli and I decorated our Christmas tree and finished all our other decorations. I decided against putting the lights up on the roof. Maybe another year I'll decorate for the neighborhood. This year I just felt like decorating for us. I know...I know...Where is the Christmas spirit? Well we do have two trees decorated. One is at the clinic. A lot of people see that one. That will have to be good enough for this year.

Late Night Post

It's late at night! What time is it? Time to check the pond and give you the water temperature update. Hopefully it won't be too cold for the goldfish or the water plants. Give me a second, I'll be right back... Sorry I took so long. I decided to get a snack before sitting back down. The answer is almost 56 degrees. Not too bad. The water is actually warmer than the last time I checked. It will probably be colder during the night though. I'll try to remember to check it in the morning. Well, back to my snack. I'll talk to you all later when there is something to report.

Future Radio Star?

As you can see, our dog Hunter was considering his possible career in radio or music the other day. The decision was...eat the microphone. He felt that clean teeth were much more important than fame. Oh well, there go my dreams of retiring at 30. Since Hunter hasn't made me rich, I had to finish planting the anacharis for the pond and sinking them in the bottom myself. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the water in the water garden that I had to pull the plants out of was very cold. As far as sinking the plants in the pond, I used a hoe to lower them to the bottom. The goldfish were interested in the goings on, but decided they didn't want any part of it. I also finished sealing the last of the pond's siding. The pond is complete. Current pond temperature: 53.7 degrees Fahrenheit. It's getting pretty cold. For now, I'm feeding the fish. I'm either going to stop feeding them at 45 or 50 degrees. I haven't decided yet. Every book and website has different advice. I'm not feeding them much now though as it is. I figure a little food is a good idea for now because the pond isn't established and it doesn't have much as far as food sources unless they nibble on the plants or the occasional stray bug. Meanwhile, in the house, the other goldfish and the koi are eating, growing and dreaming of their spring release into their fish mansion. So far, all the fish are looking good with one exception. One of the feeder koi got a wound by his right pectoral fin about a week and a half ago. It looks like he was chased into a sharp ornament by our monster koi. I separated them and the healing process seems to be progressing; just not as fast as I would like. Other than that, the koi behaves and eats very well. So, one casualty and none lost since the two feeders kicked it a week after getting them over two + months ago. 15 out of 17 fish remain. That's not bad considering that means that we still have 11 out of the 13 fish that we pulled out of the feeder tanks. That's the update for now. I'm off to bed. You all take care.