: August 2008

Last night was very special at The Wine Company. Owner Jim Lilly was able to get Steve Anglim, owner and winemaker of Anglim Winery in Paso Robles to talk about some of his wines while we sampled them. Steve knows his stuff and makes superior wines. We tasted "Cameo", a white Rhone blend, Viognier, 2005 and 2006 Pinot Noir, Grenache and Cabernet Sauvignon.

It was such a treat to hear about the wines from the winemaker's perspective. Steve clearly has a passion for what he does and it shines through in his wines. He made me long for a return visit to Paso Robles.

Steve Anglim & Jim Lilly

"Professor" Steve

Steve's wares

Pauline from The Wine Company

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

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It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

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This is not the type of post I normally write. I wish I didn't feel the need to write it. I wish I hadn't seen what I saw yesterday.

I was showing homes to a client, who happens to be an African-American woman. I would not normally mention that, but it has bearing on what happened. When we went inside the second home, I was horrified. Graffiti had been spray painted on the walls, floors and kitchen counters. KKK. White Power. F--- N------. Swastikas.

I told my client that it made me sick. She dealt with it beautifully, and actually intends to put in an offer on the house. I was left speechless and stunned.

On my way home, I called the listing agent and asked if he had been in his listing recently. When I told him what I had seen, he replied "It is what it is. We are going to have it cleaned up. We already have multiple offers." I kept thinking what I would have done if it were my listing. There's no way on earth I would have let one person in to see that home until the hateful images had been removed. I think this man gives the rest of us a black eye. What would you have done?

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage – Active Rain Ambassador (951) 907-9701

It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

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One of the most amazing people I have been blessed to meet through Active Rain is Joey Aszterbaum. Joey is much more focused on helping others succeed than he is with his own success. I'm convinced that's why he is as successful as he is. if you haven't checked out his Real Agent Help website, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Each month, Joey organizes a breakfast meeting at Mimi's in Hemet. Last week, Heid Gray of Amerit Escrow was the breakfast sponsor. Donations went to the Arrid Club, a group dedicated to helping people with drug and alcohol dependencies. Her guests told us about the 1st Annual Celebrity Golf Fundraiser for the La Vista Recovery & Wholess Center For Women. Several celebrities including the famed Dodgers' shortstop and base stealer Maury Wills will be a part of the event.

Joey had asked John Occhi and me if we would cover the basics of blogging for the group. We decided John would focus on the business of blogging while I would cover the social aspects... go figure! The group seemed very interested in what we had to say and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. If you haven't already done so, spread the word about blogging. Isn't this just amazing?

 

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Active Rain Ambassador (951) 907-9701

It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

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It's a tough job being Active Rain's ambassador. I have to travel all over the country,meeting and spending time with wonderful people and eating fabulous food.

 

Laura and I arrived in Austin Friday afternoon. Austin is a vibrant city, filled with fun places to visit and delicious places to eat. Iron Works B-B-Q caught our eye. We stopped for lunch and we weren't disappointed. We feasted on chicken, chopped beef, beans and potato salad. It was absolutely yummy!

We were in town for Laura's business, but more importantly to celebrate Jason Crouch's 38th birthday! I met Jason in Bandera a few months back for yet another AR gathering.

What's Tom Plant Doing On The Floor?

Shortly after that visit, with a few nudges, Jason began to plan his birthday party/Active Rain gathering. And what an event it was! About sixty folks gathered at County Line On The Lake, an incredible barbeque restaurant overlooking Bull Creek in Austin. About half of the attendees were AR bloggers, including Deb Brooks, Liz Carter, Judi Morgan, Tricia Jumonville, Ricki & Don Eichler, Sherry Scales and a cast of thousands. We shared stories of what Active Rain has meant to us and what we look forward to down the road. The quote of the day came from the birthday boy who said during introductions "If you don't know who I am, you owe me $20 for lunch."

I am convinced lifelong friendships have been established in the rain, in addition to a multitude of business network connections. There's already talk of a Louisiana/Texas gathering. I'll have to contact my travel agent :-)

 

 

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Active Rain Ambassador (951) 907-9701

It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

 

 

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Jo-Anne Smith introduced me to Blog Action Day last year. The collective power bloggers have is even more staggering than it was last year. Blog Action Day is October 15th this year and the theme is fighting poverty.

If you're wondering how you can help, there are several ways. For starters here are 24 ways you can make a difference. The Blog Action day site has a multitude of resources you can utilize to lend a hand. Will you make a difference this year? You can.

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Active Rain Ambassador (951) 907-9701

It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

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One of the most rewarding aspects of my time as a director for the board of the Southwest Riverside County Association of REALTORS was the networking opportunities and the people I met. One of the brightest is Maryann Edwards, mayor pro tem for the city of Temecula. Maryann was kind enough to share her thoughts with me on:

THE GOOD OLD DAYS ARE FINALLY HERE

As a kid growing up in tiny Cameron, Missouri (pop. 3672) where everyone knew everyone, if you did ANYTHING questionable, the entire town knew about it by 8am the next morning and you were publicly held accountable. Why? Because every resident kept a watchful eye on the kids and took action accordingly. Those were the good old days!

Today, some parents have abdicated responsibility for raising their children to everyone else – the school, teachers, neighbors, the city. When I was on the school board, a great TVHS teacher coined the phrase, “the danger hours” for those hours between 3pm and 6pm when kids are home alone and choose to get into mischief.

Some people say it is the city’s responsibility to “keep those kids busy” during the danger hours. Keep those kids busy? Know what we did for fun in 1970 in Cameron, Missouri? Played baseball at the grass lot behind Clara Marquis’s house, fished in Uncle Tommy’s pond, swam every summer day from 2-4pm at the one municipal pool in the one public park, and played Monopoly on my grandmother’s front porch while we waited for the ice cream man. Nobody got into trouble. Nobody was tempted to tag the school out of boredom. There was NOTHING to do, yet we were busy all the time and happy as clams.

I agree that kids need places to go and suitable activities to occupy their time. But I draw the line at blaming the city, school, teachers, or society for the actions of the few troublemakers who give all kids a bad wrap. It seems Governor Schwarzenegger agrees.

Finally, common sense prevails as the Governor has signed a new state law effective January 1, 2009 that will require graffiti vandals to clean up and repair the property they have tagged. In some cases, the sentence can include maintaining the site of the crime for a year – a very expensive proposition affecting both taggers and parents. I’d also like to see the taggers wear a big old T-shirt with their name on the front and back in 6” high letters as they clean up their graffiti mess. But I’m sure that would somehow be considered unfair punishment, so I’ll settle for the law as it stands, and be thankful.

It looks like the good old days have finally arrived. Isn’t it amazing that it took an action hero and a 2008 California state law to implement what the residents of tiny Cameron, Missouri have been practicing for over 100 years – holding kids accountable for their actions?

Maryann Edwards is Temecula’s Mayor Pro Tem, Vice President of Mission Oaks National Bank, a wife of 31 years, and the mother of three.

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage – Active Rain Ambassador (951) 907-9701

It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

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This is one of the views from Calcareous Winery on Peachy Canyon Road in Paso Robles. It's one of the reasons Laura and I love the area so much. In fact, we've visited there three times in the past two months.

Paso Robles has a rich history. Jesse James went there to visit relatives and recover from a gunshot wound in the city's mineral baths. Today, wine dominates the area. In fact the number of area wineries doubled between 1993 and 2002. There are well over 100 wineries there now.

When we arrived Friday July 25, we were treated to an unexpected surprise. The California Mid State Fair was underway and from across the street we were able to hear Steely Dan performing live!

Saturday was devoted to sight seeing and wine tasting. We began the day at Tobin James Winery, which is quickly becoming a favorite of ours. We met Tim and we knew we had made a friend.

I love Zinfandel and Laura loves sparkling wine, and the ones from Tobin James are excellent. While on Hiway 46 East, we also visited Chumeia, Derby Wine Estates (formerly Laura's Vineyard!), Meridian and EOS.

After lunch we headed west on Hiway 46 to Vineyard Drive. We wound up heading down some dirt roads, but the payoff was worth it!

We had been told that Fratelli Perata was definitely a place to visit, and are we ever glad we went! Carol Perata runs the tasting room, is a wonderful host and poured us some of the best wines we have ever tasted. It's a very intimate room, with a wonderful mural on the wall that shows their homeland and their family.

Right down the road was L'Aventure, a boutique winery that produces a small amount of excellent wine. We wanted to return to Carmody McKnight and we were fortunate once more to have winemaker Greg Cropper there to meet us. We also had the pleasure of meeting Marian McKnight, the 1957 Miss America and co-owner of the winery.

We returned again last weekend and got way off the beaten track. Our adventures took us to Templeton, where we visited Bella Luna Winery. On the way there while taking a detour, we ran across the most unusual planter I have ever seen.

Yes, that's a Jaguar. The words "Slow Down!" are underneath the rear bumper. I had heard Turley produces an excellent Zinfandel, so off we went. Again, we were not disappointed.

Another place that came highly recommended was Dunning Vineyards. Bob Dunning was there to greet us and we sampled his hand crafted Rhone style wines.

We were nearing the end of our journey. A wrong turn took us to Jack Creek Farms, Where we had cider slushies and a taste of homemade fudge. Yummy!

Just a few more stops to make... we turned left on Vineyard Drive and stopped by Four Vines, producer of one of the best Petite Syrahs I have tasted.

Just up the driveway from Four Vines, we discovered Zin Alley and met owner and winemaker Frank Nerelli. Frank makes one of the tastiest Zinfandels I have ever tried as well as a delicious Zinfandel Port. From there, we were off to Peachy Canyon Road. Peachy Canyon is a beautiful road that winds through the hills of Paso Robles. We thought we'd never get there, but we arrived at Minassian-Young. Up on a hillside with a lovely breeze, we enjoyed a few more fine wines. We were told that on our way to Calcareous, we should first stop across the street for a visit to Nadeau. They have some top shelf wines on display in their tasting room.

Their wines were also excellent, and with that visit finished, we had one last stop. There's a picture of the view from Calcareous at the top of this post. They are in the process of building a new tasting room and event center which should open soon. This was a great way to finish off our trip. The scenery was gorgeous and the wine fantastic. In case you're wondering, we took a few bottles home.

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage – Active Rain Ambassador (951) 907-9701

It would be my honor to show you the incredible Temecula Valley, a place I’m very proud to call home.

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