Christmas 2012 Temecula Wine Tasting

Did You Know? - Risotto is a class of Italian rice dishes cooked in broth to a creamy consistency. The broth may be meat-, fish-, or vegetable-based. Many types of risotto contain Parmesan cheese, butter, and onion. It is one of the most common ways of cooking rice in Italy.

Did You Know? - A scallop (play /ˈskɒləp/ or /ˈskæləp/) is a marine bivalve mollusk of the family Pectinidae. Scallops are a cosmopolitan family, found in all of the world's oceans. Many scallops are highly prized as a food source. The brightly colored, fan-shaped shells of some scallops, with their radiating fluted pattern, are valued by shell collectors and have been used as motifs in art and design.

The name "scallop" is derived from the Old French escalope, which means "shell".

Did You Know? - Feltz, Charles H (1916-2003) Leading American space engineer. At North American 1940-1981. Chief Engineer on X-15, Apollo, and Space Shuttle. 1974-1981 served as Rockwell corporate trouble-shooter.

Charlie Feltz was a plain-speaking engineer who had grown up on a cattle ranch in Moore County, Texas. After graduating in from Texas Tech University in Lubbock in mechanical engineering in 1940, he joined went to California and was hired by North American. During the war he worked on the P-51 and B-25 aircraft. In the postwar years he played roles of increasing responsibility on the B-45, F-86, and F-100. His performance as Chief Engineer on the X-15 program convinced NASA that he could walk on water. He was able to handle directly and without any runaround all aspects of the job of managing the translation of engineering designs into hardware - production design, managing the construction, getting the aircraft out of the door.

When the time came to put together North American's Apollo proposal for NASA, Harrison Storms called Feltz from his sick-bed in Texas to join the program. He was thrown into simplifying the company's detailed design for Apollo by cutting out the unnecessary while still meeting NASA's fail-safe criteria. After North American won the competition, Feltz was made Chief Engineer, and then in 1964 Assistant Apollo Program Manager, with 1,000 engineers reporting to him.

Feltz worked on the Shuttle proposal, and after North American won that contract in 1972, moved again into the Chief Engineer, and then Program Manager positions. In 1974 he was made Technical Assistant to the President of the Downey Division, and then in 1976 he served as Technical Assistant in the corporate office. He worked as a problem-solver, tackling several developmental issues, notably the shuttle's tile problems. He retired from North American in 1981, having seen the shuttle into the beginning of flight operations. He then retired to Temecula, California, and began traveling the world.

Birth Place: , Texas.
Born: 1916.09.15.
Died: 2003.01.03

Did You Know? - Keyways Winery, founded in 1989 by Mr. Carl Key, was one of the original wineries that established Temecula Valley Wine Country.  Today, under the ownership of Silverton Partners, Keyways stands as a leader in the Valley, known for our infectious hospitality, entertainment and Mediterranean-styled wines.

Keyways' meticulously manicured estate reflects the warmth, charm and ambiance of an early California winery nestled in the vineyards and surrounded by picturesque mountains and expansive horse ranches.

Did You Know? - The White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.

The six most recognized members of the group were arrested by the Gestapo and beheaded in 1943. The text of their sixth leaflet was smuggled by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke out of Germany through Scandinavia to the United Kingdom, and in July 1943 copies of it were dropped over Germany by Allied planes, retitled "The Manifesto of the Students of Munich."

Another member, Hans Conrad Leipelt, who helped distribute Leaflet 6 in Hamburg, was executed on January 29, 1945 for his participation.

Today, the members of the White Rose are honoured in Germany amongst its greatest heroes, since they opposed the Third Reich in the face of almost certain death.

Did You Know? - While the sharp objects along a rose stem are commonly called "thorns", they are technically prickles — outgrowths of the epidermis (the outer layer of tissue of the stem). (True thorns, as produced by e.g. Citrus or Pyracantha, are modified stems, which always originate at a node and which have nodes and internodes along the length of the thorn itself.) Rose prickles are typically sickle-shaped hooks, which aid the rose in hanging onto other vegetation when growing over it.

Did You Know? - In the 20th century, wine presses advanced from the vertical style pressing of the basket press and ancient wine press to horizontal pressing with pressure either being applied at one or both ends or from the side through use of an airbag or bladder. These new presses were categorize as "batch", which like the basket press had to have the pomace emptied and grapes reloaded, and as "continuous" where a belt or Archimedes' screw would subject the grapes/pomace to increasing pressure from one end of the press to the other with new grapes being added and the pomace being continuously removed.

Did You Know? - Dosing generally applies to feeding chemicals or medicines in small quantities into a process fluid or to a living being at intervals or to atmosphere at intervals to give sufficient time for the chemical or medicine to react or show the results.