Beautiful Country
Ok, now I’ve seen some beautiful scenery in my time, but this area is incredible. The green hills with the vinyards and the fog in the mornings is a sight to behold. Yesterday we visited two wineries. The first was Guglielmo, a family owned traditional affair of three generations. The place grows 13 acres of grapes and does all the pressing and bottling on sight. The guy giving the tour was from the Netherlands and reminded me a lot of one of the guys in my office; a great sense of humor and can truely play the part. The second stop was at Clos la Chance. This was a much newer facility with high tech gadgets and large facilities. They grow about 70 acres of grapes and monitor soil conditions like humidity and temperature. They also bottle many wines with a screw-top. The tour director gave a long explanation about all the benefits of the different types of corks and bottling methods for the different wines, but it really takes a lot of the romance out of the whole “waiter opening the bottle at the table” thing. The drive out and back was incredible, the San Jose valley was originally agriculture and most of that was orchards. The valley is surrounded by mountains, duh, it’s a valley, but beautifully rugged and it has all these monstrous houses tucked in on the tops.
Today is finally over, it’s always the most boring, yet necessary, part of the conference. From here on out it’s much more interesting. Over half of the attendees this year are first-timers, so there are lots of new faces and many new ideas. It’s late, but I’m off to more networking time 