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Bespoke Collection
The Bespoke Collection is a wine producer and lifestyle brand based in Yountville, California in the United States. The company comprises two wine labels: Blackbird Vineyards and Recuerdo Wines, and a wine, art and design gallery called Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley. Bespoke Collection also has an additional art gallery in St. Helena, California called I. Wolk Gallery. History Michael Polenske purchased the Blackbird Vineyard, in Oak Knoll District in California, in 2003 as a vacation retreat. The 10-acre property has a vineyard, a 100-year-old farm house, a ranch home and a pool. Polenske left his job in finance in 2006, to create a luxury brand focusing on wine, art and design, which would become the Bespoke Collection. Polenske's interest in wine was instilled in him when his father, a pilot in the military, was stationed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California. He moved from his San Francisco apartment to live full-time in Napa Valley. Polenske opened Ma(i)sonry Napa Val ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Polenske
Michael Polenske is a Malaysian entrepreneur, gallery owner, and vintner. He is the founder of the Bespoke Collection and Blackbird Vineyards. He serves as creative director, chairman and founder of the Bespoke Collection. Polenske has been profiled in ''Forbes'', the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', ''Food & Wine'', the ''Robb Report'', '' Town & Country'' and '' Departures''. Early life and education Michael Polenske was born in Malaysia Kota Kinabalu. Polenske's father was a pilot for the United States Air Force, serving in the squadron that supported Air Force One and Two during Richard Nixon's presidency. His father was also a hurricane hunter. As a child, his family lived in Washington, D.C. The family frequently visited the National Mall, which inspired Polenske's interest in fine art. Polenske was a Boy Scout. The family also lived at Travis Air Force Base and in Vacaville, California. While living in both of these areas, Polenske was exposed to wine country, instilling an ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merlot
Merlot is a dark blue–colored wine grape variety, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name ''Merlot'' is thought to be a diminutive of ''merle'', the French name for the blackbird, probably a reference to the color of the grape. Its softness and "fleshiness," combined with its earlier ripening, make Merlot a popular grape for blending with the sterner, later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon, which tends to be higher in tannin. Along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, Merlot is one of the primary grapes used in Bordeaux wine, and it is the most widely planted grape in the Bordeaux wine regions. Merlot is also one of the most popular red wine varietals in many markets. This flexibility has helped to make it one of the world's most planted grape varieties. As of 2004, Merlot was estimated to be the third most grown variety at globally.J. Robinson (ed) ''The Oxford Companion to Wine'' Third Edition, Oxford University Pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandra Von Fürstenberg
Alexandra von Fürstenberg (; born 3 October 1972) is a Hong Kong-born American heiress, socialite, entrepreneur and furniture designer based in Los Angeles. She is the youngest daughter of American billionaire and DFS Group co-founder Robert Warren Miller. Early life Alexandra von Fürstenberg was born in 1972, in British Hong Kong to American entrepreneur Robert Warren Miller and his Ecuadorian wife, María Clara "Chantal" (). She has two older sisters Pia and Marie-Chantal. Alexandra and her sisters grew up between Hong Kong, Paris and New York. She attended Parsons School of Design and Brown University, where she studied costume design and art history. In the 1990s, Alexandra and her sisters were popularly dubbed by New York high society as the Miller Sisters. Career In 1995, Alexandra joined the design team of her then mother-in-law, Diane von Fürstenberg. During her ten-year career at DVF as Creative Director and later as Director of Image, Alexandra was instrumen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vintage
Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and declare vintage Port in their best years. From this tradition, a common, though not strictly correct, usage applies the term to any wine that is perceived to be particularly old or of a particularly high quality. Most countries allow a vintage wine to include a portion of wine that is not from the year denoted on the label. In Chile and South Africa, the requirement is 75% same-year content for vintage-dated wine. In Australia, New Zealand, and the member states of the European Union, the requirement is 85%. In the United States, the requirement is 85%, unless the wine is designated with an AVA, (e.g., Napa Valley), in which case it is 95%. Technically, the 85% r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Art
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art. Modern art begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the Proto-Cubism, pre-c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contemporary Art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of Medium (arts), materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century. Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform, organising principle, ideology, or "-ism". Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality. In vernacular English, ''modern'' and ''contemporary'' are synonyms, resulting in some conflation and confusion of the terms ''modern art'' and ''contemporary art'' by non-specialists. Scope Some define contemporary art as art produced within "our lifetime," recognising tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building stone such as marble, granite, and limestone, cast stone, concrete blocks, glass blocks, and adobe. Masonry is generally a highly durable form of construction. However, the materials used, the quality of the mortar and workmanship, and the pattern in which the units are assembled can substantially affect the durability of the overall masonry construction. A person who constructs masonry is called a mason or bricklayer. These are both classified as construction trades. Applications Masonry is commonly used for walls and buildings. Brick and concrete block are the most common types of masonry in use in industrialized nations and may be either load-bearing or non-load-bearing. Concrete blocks, especially those with hollow cores, offer va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Play On Words
Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phonetic mix-ups such as spoonerisms, obscure words and meanings, clever rhetorical excursions, oddly formed sentences, double entendres, and telling character names (such as in the play ''The Importance of Being Earnest'', ''Ernest'' being a given name that sounds exactly like the adjective ''earnest''). Word play is quite common in oral cultures as a method of reinforcing meaning. Examples of text-based ( orthographic) word play are found in languages with or without alphabet-based scripts, such as homophonic puns in Mandarin Chinese. Techniques Some techniques often used in word play include interpreting idioms literally and creating contradictions and redundancies, as in Tom Swifties: :"Hurry up and get to the back of the ship," Tom sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's outer solid layer, the Earth's crust, crust, and most of its interior, except for the liquid Earth's outer core, outer core and pockets of magma in the asthenosphere. The study of rocks involves multiple subdisciplines of geology, including petrology and mineralogy. It may be limited to rocks found on Earth, or it may include planetary geology that studies the rocks of other celestial objects. Rocks are usually grouped into three main groups: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks are formed when magma cools in the Earth's crust, or lava cools on the ground surface or the seabed. Sedimentary rocks are formed by diagenesis and lithification of sediments, which in turn are formed by the weathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Blackbird
The common blackbird (''Turdus merula'') is a species of true thrush. It is also called the Eurasian blackbird (especially in North America, to distinguish it from the unrelated New World blackbirds), or simply the blackbird where this does not lead to confusion with a local species. It breeds in Europe, Asiatic Russia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to Australia and New Zealand. It has a number of subspecies across its large range; a few of the Asian subspecies are sometimes considered to be full species. Depending on latitude, the common blackbird may be resident, partially migratory, or fully migratory. The adult male of the common blackbird (''Turdus merula merula'', the nominate subspecies), which is found throughout most of Europe, is all black except for a yellow eye-ring and bill and has a rich, melodious song; the adult female and juvenile have mainly dark brown plumage. This species breeds in woods and gardens, building a neat, cup-shaped nest, bound toge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosé
A rosé () is a type of wine that incorporates some of the color from the grape skins, but not enough to qualify it as a red wine. It may be the oldest known type of wine, as it is the most straightforward to make with the skin contact method. The pink color can range from a pale "onionskin" orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grape varieties used and winemaking techniques. Usually, the wine is labelled ''rosé'' in French, Portuguese, and English-speaking countries, rosado in Spanish, or rosato in Italian. There are three major ways to produce rosé wine: skin contact, ''saignée'', and blending. Rosé wines can be made still, semi-sparkling or sparkling and with a wide range of sweetness levels from highly dry Provençal rosé to sweet White Zinfandels and blushes. Rosé wines are made from a wide variety of grapes and can be found all around the globe.J. Robinson (ed) ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'' Third Edition pg 593 Oxford University Press 2006 O. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon became internationally recognized through its prominence in Bordeaux wines, where it is often blended with Merlot and Cabernet Franc. From France and Spain, the grape spread across Europe and to the New World where it found new homes in places like California's Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Napa Valley, New Zealand's Hawke's Bay, South Africa's Stellenbosch region, Australia's Margaret River, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra regions, and Chile's Maipo Valley and Colchagua. For most of the 20th century, it was the world's most widely planted premium red wine grape until it was surpassed by Merlot in the 1990s. However, by 2015, Cabernet Sauvignon had once again become the most widely planted wine gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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