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Wine Country Welcome
California’s wine country provides the perfect venue for weddings. Visit our Napa Weddings page or our Central Coast Weddings page to see what wineries offer on-site services for your wedding or reception.
Perhaps nowhere else in California offers as remarkable a venue for a wedding as does the Wine Country. Not only does it have world-class hotels and services but it gives your wedding guests a remarkable array of activities to indulge in.
From the Armstrong Redwoods to 78 miles of pristine beaches to the beautiful Central Coast, the California Wine Country really is the best spot to host your events.
Wine Tasting Etiquette
On caution’s side, be careful when driving around our wine country in your expectant state of euphoria. We’re pretty protective of our wineries here because it takes a lot of downtime for them to be able to concentrate on what their winery should be doing next.
If you just roll into any old winery and tumble out of your car looking for a good tasting experience, you might find the staff a bit grumpy. While many winery’s love visitors, some emphatically do not (think Alien vs. Predator).
As mentioned above, the majority of wineries on the Central Coast and in Napa and Sonoma who do allow visitors would like you to give them some advance warning before your tour group comes at them like a mob of thirsty zombies. One or two thirsty zombies they can accommodate.
Most wineries also charge a tasting fee these days. These fees are normally set at a fair price and most fees are waived if you purchase wine.
Central Coast Tasting Rooms and Wine Bars
It’s easy to find tasting rooms and wine bars in Napa County because the towns line up from south to north.
Whether it’s your first visit to the Wine Country or you are a local, one of the easiest ways to enjoy a variety of wines is at a tasting room or a wine bar. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.
Of course, you can drive around the county looking for wineries offering wine tasting and this can be fun. However, an easier way to find the wine of your dreams is to take a stroll around the towns of Sonoma County and pop into the many available tasting rooms and wine bars.
Random Musings
When visiting wineries in the Wine Country, we highly recommend booking a tour. There are plenty of them available. Just check with your hotel when booking a room or visit the local chambers of commerce for free coupons.
Back in the old days (the ’70’s), we used to drive our VW’s into Napa Valley and see how many wineries we could hit in an afternoon.
In that geological period, most tastings were free and, although we bought plenty of fine bottles of happiness to take home with us, we certainly drank more wine than we should have as we continued on our merry way.
You can’t do that today and, let’s be honest, it was pretty stupid to do it back then. But we were young and, well, we were stupid.
You can experience so much more when you take a Central Coast, Sonoma or Napa Valley winery tour. On a winery tour, you are availed a good amount of local knowledge and more time to enjoy the day with your fellow thrill-seekers.
Thank you for taking a little time to visit our website.
Good luck with cleaning all those windows!
Benefits of Epoxy Flooring for a Winery
If you’re in the wine industry, you know that the environment in which your wine is produced and stored plays a crucial role in its quality. From temperature control to cleanliness, every detail matters when it comes to producing high-quality wines. One often overlooked aspect of winery design is flooring. Epoxy flooring can provide numerous benefits for wineries, from safety and durability to aesthetic appeal. In this post, we’ll explore some of the top benefits of epoxy flooring for wineries.
- Durability
One of the most significant benefits of epoxy flooring for wineries is its durability. Epoxy coatings are made up of two parts: a resin and a hardener that combine to create a chemical bond with the concrete surface. This creates a sturdy surface that can withstand heavy foot traffic, machinery, and equipment without cracking or chipping.
In addition to being durable against wear and tear, epoxy coatings are also resistant to chemicals commonly found in wineries such as acids and alkalis. This means that spills won’t damage the floor, making maintenance easier and reducing long-term repair costs.
- Safety
Another important benefit of epoxy flooring for wineries is safety. Wineries have unique safety concerns due to the presence of liquids on floors which may cause slips and falls – putting employees at risk and potentially damaging products.
Epoxy coatings can be designed with anti-slip properties which help prevent accidents by providing traction even when wet.
- Aesthetic Appeal
Epoxy flooring can add an attractive touch to any space including wineries! With various colors available – you can choose one that matches your brand or décor goals perfectly.
Additionally – if you want something more decorative than plain solid colors, custom designs like logos or patterns can be incorporated into your epoxy coating giving your winery a unique look! Our friends at Stoney Creek Epoxy Floors have installed some beautiful epoxy floors and can definitely assist with any aesthetic questions you may have.
- Easy Maintenance
Wineries require frequent cleaning due to spills from liquids like wine or other chemicals used during production processes – therefore easy maintenance becomes an essential requirement when choosing flooring materials.
Epoxy coatings are easy to clean with just soap & water; they do not require special treatments or harsh chemicals which reduces maintenance costs over time while keeping your floors looking great for years!
- Temperature Control
Temperature control is essential in maintaining consistent quality throughout wine production process; from fermentation through aging until bottling stages.
Epoxy coatings have great insulating properties which helps maintain optimal temperatures within different areas of your winery facilities; ensuring that each stage of wine production occurs under ideal conditions leading towards better quality end products!
- Cost-Effective
Compared with other types of flooring materials typically used in industrial settings – such as tiles or carpeting – epoxy flooring offers significant cost savings over time due to reduced need for repairs or replacements.
The initial installation cost may seem higher than other options but considering all these benefits together makes it worth investing in an epoxy coating since it will save money on repairs/replacements over time – ultimately resulting in greater ROI!
Conclusion:
Overall, there are many reasons why epoxy flooring is an excellent choice for wineries; from its durability against wear & tear caused by heavy foot traffic & machinery usage; anti-slip properties ensuring employee safety; attractive appearance customizable design options; easy maintenance requirements keeping costs low while maintaining aesthetic appeal & temperature insulation capabilities allowing optimal conditions throughout production process leading towards high-quality wines! If you’re interested in upgrading your winery’s floor with an epoxy coating material – consider contacting professionals who specialize specifically in commercial-grade applications!
Make Your Dream Outdoor Living a Reality with Outdoor Living Designs
Add the bright and fun element to your outdoor living design with incredibly lit, comfortably assembled, and beautifully designed outdoor spaces to find a serene and solace spot amid the humdrum of life. Yes! a patio, a backyard, or any outdoor construction that can provide beauty to your architecture and balance and serenity to your everyday life is the goal of Outdoor Living Designs, the Sonoma county landscape constructors known for our artistic hardscape landscaping in Santa Rosa, CA.
Exceeding your hardscape expectations with budget-friendly designs
Outdoor Living Designs specializes in overhauling existing patios, pool decks, pavers to backyards with aesthetic designs and quality constructions. We can build the all-new outdoor living spaces within your budget, exceeding your expectations
Make your vision a reality
We bring over all our expertise and resources to provide you with artistically designed hardscape landscapes, remarkable backyard landscape overhauls, attractive paver layouts, a handy outdoor island grill, and anti-slip pool deck pavers installation, and much more.
For personalized landscape experience
Schedule a call with us today for a personalized outdoor living design and live your dreams.
Wine Country Inspired Painting
Interior painting designs that are inspired by wine country are warm and inviting. Napa and the Central Coast are not only known for their fantastic wine, but they’re also known for their stunning views and ambiance. Here, we’ll try and give you several ideas on how you can achieve that relaxed California wine country look in your next interior decorating project!
California’s wine regions inspire colours that are natural and soft, with pale golds and dusty greens. Wine country style is evident in the many small establishments that make up the region, from small local inns to beautiful restaurants on picturesque, large estates. Small, local establishments are a great place to find inspiration for wine country style, as they embody the colours and culture that draw so many people to the area year after year.
We called Martin Blouin, from Professional Painters Niagara (https://www.professionalpaintersniagara.com), who is a professional painting contractor in the wine region of Niagara, Ontario, Canada, to ask him about wine country inspired painting design. Last year, he visited Napa Valley to try and find some new inspiration. What follows next is a few Sherwin Williams paint colours he’s been experimenting with to try and capture that wine country style!
#1 Torchlight SW 6374
Torchlight is a deep, rich gold colour. It’s truly the foundation of any interior design scheme that will try and capture the style of wine country. It can easily balance with browns and greens to complete an elegant, warm interior painting design.
#2 Chrysanthemum SW 6347
Chrysanthemum is a copper, rust colour, but much more! It invokes the tones of fall and works exceptionally well with a gold like Torchlight. Chrysanthemum is like the colour you see as the setting autumn sun casts its light over rolling hills of vineyards. Use it for accent walls or accent pieces in your overall design.
#3 Canvas Tan SW 7531
Canvas Tan is a fab neutral that is capable of calming any space. It’s a simple neutral that can invoke feelings of calm and peace as if you were waking up in the morning among the vineyards in wine country. This colour is a great example of the fact that not all wine country-inspired painting designs need to be deep and rich. Incorporate a wine country inspired neutral like this into your design today and observe the calming results for yourself!
We’ve found a few other colours you might also want to look at for your wine country inspired design:
#4 Deep Ocean 2056-20 Benjamin Moore
This colour truly embodies the colour of the Pacific Ocean that rests off the coast of California wine country. This colour acts as an excellent contrast to the warm and neutral colours we’ve already presented. Use it as a secondary colour in your design to freshen up your space.
#5 Shallow Valley 6011-9 Valspar
Shadow Valley is a tender green that reflects the foilage of the vineyards. After all, there would be no wine country without the luscious green plants that give us the grapes! This colour has a very subtle yellow undertone, giving it the ability to match up with golds and neutrals, or it’s even able to stand up on it’s own in a contemporary space!
History of the Burger
Do you remember your first burger? Was it a cheeseburger? Just a hamburger? The burger is a staple for family dinners, synonymous with BBQ. It’s an easy recipe that caters to all, no matter the age, with options for customization.
It is one of the most popular foods on our planet and if you’ve never tried one, you’re an anomaly.
Where did the burger come from?
The name hamburger came from an evolution of the original Hamburg steak. Cows from the German city of Hamburg were well-known for their quality. The meat was commonly prepared by chopping, grounding, or mincing, and mixing with onions and seasonings. But it was not a sandwich like we know it today.
As Germans immigrated to the United States, mostly through New York and Chicago, the Hamburg steak came too. It began appearing on menus marketed towards the German immigrants who could be looking for comfort food. That version of Hamburg steak today is mostly referred to as Salisbury steak
When did the modern burger come to be?
As the German immigrants adapted to city life in America’s biggest cities, so too did the Hamburg steak. History can’t recollect the exact person, date, or location that the sandwich version, as we now know as the burger, was created for the first time.
Its beginnings were influenced by street carts and the desire to make eating ground beef patties possible while on the go. So the patties were sandwiched between two pieces of white bread and it evolved from there.
But there are other claims to who and where the first burgers were made. A man named “Hamburger Charlie” Nagreen sold meatballs squished between two pieces of bread in Seymour, Wisconsin in 1885. It is said that he was the one who dubbed it the hamburger.
In Hamburg, New York in the same year as Hamburger Charlie, the Menches brothers were said to create the first hamburger as well. Using the hamburger name because of the city name, coincidentally the same as the German town where the meat came from.
There are monuments and museums in Seymour, Wisconsin yet also in Tulsa, Oklahoma because of the claims to burger fruition. Eventually, it didn’t matter where it came from, but how easy it was to buy in fast-food restaurants and make at home.
How did the burger go from street food to every-day family meal?
American fast-food restaurants found their rise alongside industrialization. By the 1920s, burgers became synonymous with comfort food. They were cheap, in high demand, easy to produce, and so the first drive-thru restaurants were burger joints.
By 1950 there was a fast-food boom. Women were the homemakers, while men worked all day and came home to a meal made by their wives. It became increasingly easier to serve dinner via fast-food restaurants, and the franchising businesses grew tremendously. The burger was a quintessential part of that trend and came at the right time, right place.
In the 1970’s ground beef patties made their way into homes with easy-to-make meals. All you had to do was add the meat, and your meal was ready for family dinner.
Today, you can find all types of burgers customized with different meats like bison burgers or turkey burgers. Plant-based burgers avoid the meat industry altogether. Some get raunchy with more fried foods toppled on top or pared down with lettuce as a bread replacement.
What is the difference between fast-food burgers and made from scratch burgers?
In the 2000s burgers had a reboot. Culinary tastes catered to individually made masterpieces, instead of burgers made by line cooks. Restaurants began distancing themselves from cheap, greasy, drive-thru food by creating craft burgers. Internationally, you can find many interpretations of the burger. Some are a stretch. But nothing replaces the standard hamburger recipe of a meat patty between two buns, with condiments, vegetables, and sometimes cheese.
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