This weather is more like it!

After a rainy drive down the coast to Carmel, we finally arrived at the festival. Our hotel room is pretty impressive, to say the least, and I had a pretty hard time controlling my urge to jump up and down when the concierge showed up around. I have a bathroom the size of a large bedroom with a jacuzzi tub and all sorts of spa products at my disposal (haven't gotten to all of them yet), a fireplace in the living room, fully functional kitchen, the biggest bed I've ever seen and all of this with a private deck that looks out over the Pacific. Niiiice!!

Thomas had his tasting yesterday so with the exception of tonight's gala dinner he's on vacation. We went for a drive down the coast yesterday with his PR rep to have lunch together. Then last night we met Josh, a vintner from Oregon who speaks perfect French (his wife is from Burgundy) and the four of us went out to dinner together. It's supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the area and we were really well received but the dinner was, in a word, awful. I won't put the name here but you could say the theme of the dinner was Death by Black Truffle Shavings. And it was the type of black truffle that smelled like bleach. I did my best to hide them under whatever I didn't finish on my plate and avoided dessert for fear of their truffles infecting my chocolate.