Design.Wine.Dine.

Wine Wednesday (HalloWINE Style)

When one of our co-founders at work suggested that we put an adult spin on Halloween and pair our wines with classic trick-or-treat candy, I was game.  She conducted a tasting and figured out which flavors would work the best with one another before passing it over to me to style and shoot.  The office was FULL of goodies yesterday so we all did our own little tastings and they were AMAZING… Some of the pairings were really different and unique so I didn’t expect to like them all as much as I did, but I guess you really can’t go wrong with candy and wine!  It was tough to pick a favorite.  Thought I would pass these along for a little Halloween inspiration in case any of you wanted to give it a whirl on your own!  And I know it might be tempting, but try not to eat all your kids’ Halloween candy 😉 Cheers!

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Fall Cocktail Shoot – Sneak Peek

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Eeeeee!  Our cocktail shoot from Friday went SO well and while we still have a few more looks to shoot today, I couldn’t help but share one of my favorites.  I have a well documented obsession with Carrara marble and recently picked up one of these French Pastry Slabs for my new place.  It serves as such a beautiful surface for styling and I knew we also needed one for shoots at the office.  I couldn’t possibly be more excited with how insane it makes the ingredients pop.  I’m so used to shooting directly on our huge farmhouse table, which is great when you’re going for really rustic, but I wanted to chic things up a bit and this made all the difference in the world.  Keep in mind, we haven’t edited a thing yet, so this is just a raw image.

Ok, ok and one more… 😉

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Happy Monday!

Photo Shoot Friday

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Since arriving back to scorching hot LA after the most amazing autumn week in New York, I’ve been gripping onto anything fall related with all my might – Pumpkin Spice Lattes galore, “Leaves” scented candles everywhere… I’m a little crazy about this season.  Today I’m headed to the office to shoot all of our fall cocktail looks and can’t wait to start whipping up some delicious liquid libations!  The creative side of my job is my absolute favorite and there are few things I love more than styling gorgeous shoots to share on blogs and across the interwebs 🙂  We were searching for inspiration yesterday and stumbled across this amazing food blog, Verses From My Kitchen.  Everything is so perfectly styled and I love every last shot.  We’re attempting to make a variation of this recipe today and can’t wait to share!  Stay tuned and have a lovely fall weekend!!

Cider punch-apples

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cider punch-wife's handsAll (gorgeous!) images via

Thanksgiving

Every year, my boyfriend and I travel up to the San Francisco Bay area for Thanksgiving with his family.  We are usually rushing to get out of the city (along with millions of others) the Tuesday night or Wednesday before the holiday, but this year we decided to take a more relaxed approach and drove up on Thanksgiving morning which was surprisingly quick.  On Friday, we made the trip down to Pismo for a few quiet days by the beach… just what we needed to recharge and kick into holiday mode on Monday morning.  Take a look at some of my favorite moments from the weekend below.

{Lily watching with curiosity as we were packing on Wednesday night}

{Little cousin love}

{Collecting sand dollars on the beach with the little ones}

{Love these guys}

{The CUTEST beach house in Pismo.  The French doors, the windows, the view.  Can I move in now?!}

{View from the hotel}

{One of my favorite parts of traveling – bringing home new sauces and jams to try}

{Edna Valley in San Luis Obispo}

{Recycled wine bottle glasses}

{Tasting fleet at vineyard #3 – Baileyana}

{Fall colors at Kelsey Winery}

{One of the 100+ Peacocks at Kelsey Winery!  I always seem to forget how beautiful they are until I see them again in person}

{Watching the sun set on our last night}

Team Thanksgiving Dinner

Last week I posted about our chic Thanksgiving Table inspiration for my company’s HOPEgiving celebration.  It’s the first time we’ve had a Thanksgiving dinner together so we really wanted it to be special in terms of food, wine pairings and decor.  Our Online Marketing Manager has been making Thanksgiving dinner for her family since she turned 18 so she planned (and cooked!) an insanely delicious feast for us while I took control over the tablescape.  The head of our Foundation has been wanting to write a new company manifesto, so we used the Holstee Manifesto cut up into bits to give everyone some inspiration with their place card.  We all wrote a line that we live by and pieced the puzzle together over dinner which made for some wonderful team bonding.  Lastly, our next big venture is ONEHOPE Coffee so I made sure to include some coffee beans mixed in with the florals as well as on everyone’s place setting as a reminder to be thankful for the incredible opportunities we have ahead.  I have to say, it was an absolutely magical evening filled with amazing food (and wine of course!), ONEHOPE family cheer and excitement for 2013!  What a great beginning to the holiday season!

PS: View Lauren’s to-die-for menu here and more on my tablescape and decor here 🙂  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hope at Home Site Launch

Wahoo!  It’s finally here!  Today we officially launched the new Hope at Home site which has been a tremendous effort on the direct-to-consumer side of our business.  Originally, Hope at Home was just a tiny section of the ONEHOPE Wine site and being that the program has been such a huge success, we finally invested in creating its own stand-alone site and did an entire rebrand.  I worked hand in hand with the program’s Director, Haley Harris to appropriately rebrand this program and integrate some softer and slightly more feminine design elements into the customer’s visual experience.

We started with completely eliminating black from the equation.  Black is a very prominent color in the ONEHOPE Wine branding, which is perfectly fine, but we wanted to tone down the masculinity a bit for this at-home wine tasting side of our business (being that our customers and Wine Specialists are primarily female).  However, since all of our wine labels are black, we didn’t want to go so far in the opposite direction to where the two couldn’t compliment one another.  From there, we integrated a lot of texture including kraft paper and chalkboard with a little hint of chevron thrown into the mix to give it some energy and fun.  I love it!  What do you think?

PS:  If you’re interested in hosting a wine party and donating back to a cause of your choice check it out here.  If you’d like to become a Wine Specialist, click here.

My Life in Pictures

  • Came across a picture I took last week of this amazing winter wonderland tablescape at Wildflower Linen.  Definitely got me excited for holiday decor!
  • Serious packaging envy!  A case of Sea Smoke was delivered to the office today and I could not believe how gorgeous their shipper and wine inserts were.  Talk about customer experience!  I think we have a little catching up to do 😉
  • Picked up a few (ok, like 30) paint chips on my way home from the office tonight.  I’m feelin’ Benjamin Moore’s Black Ink now… what do you think?
  • An impulse trip my favorite meat market on earth greeted me with this view.  One of those “pinch me, I really live here” moments.
  • Finally home from the office, shooting out a few more emails (or trying to) with my little one by my side.  She likes to take over the keyboard  =^. .^=

Hope you’re having a great week!

San Francisco-ing

Last Wednesday, I flew up to San Francisco for a gorgeous few days of work and play.  I’m so in love with that city, it’s hard to put it into words and pictures never do it justice so I always wind up yearning to go back from the moment I hit the ground at LAX.  The architecture, the food, the history and the seemingly endless hills with panoramic views of the city from every street corner leaves me with the desire to pack my bags and find little a bay-windowed studio to call home.  Check out a few of my favorite weekend moments below.

{Quick lunch break at The Melt at Stanford.  This place was amazing!  They only serve different types of grilled cheese sandwiches and soups for dipping.  YUM.  Side note: They’re expanding from 4 to 22 locations in 2012… Proof that a simple (but great) concept and design are a winning combination}

{Platters of finger food for our Hope at Home tasting in Santa Cruz}

{View of the Golden Gate from my friend’s rooftop as it started to light up at dusk}

{Views from the top of Nob Hill}

{So very envious of this rooftop (yes, I was doing some stalking).  Great little grilling/entertaining space with a patch of grass for a very lucky city pup}

{Taking in the architecture and hills}

{My friend Megan’s adorable gallery wall in her room}

{Some wine and kitty cat snuggle time while finishing up our work day}

{On my walk from Nob Hill to Union Square}

{Gorgeous}

{San Francisco buildings are never short of character and detail}

{On our walk to Sunday brunch}

Wine Wednesday – San Francisco

Wahooo!  I’m off to the San Francisco Bay area this morning and I can’t wait.  Tonight I’ll be helping out with a Hope at Home training and wine tasting with some lovely new Event Specialists and I’m thrilled to meet the new recruits 🙂  Since it also happens to be mine and Jake’s THIRD anniversary (holy moly, time flies!) we’ve decided to stay up in the city for the remainder of the week and weekend to celebrate.  See you Monday, LA!  Cheers!

Wine Wednesday – Cookies & Corks

Alright… two loves of my life?  Cookies and wine.  Put them together and magic happens. Enter Cookies & Corks – an amazing company based out of Virginia that recognized there is nothing better in life than the above two paired together.  YES.  Gimme, gimme, gimme!  As part of this project that I’m working on, Cookies & Corks sent us some of their amazingness to try and I’ve got to say, they’ve hit the nail on the head.  Anyone who loves wine needs to give this a try immediately.  Seriously.  Now.  Lucky for me, I recently had the chance to try both the red and white wine pairing boxes, but today, I’ll chat about the white because the pairings were so delightful that I couldn’t wait another moment to share.

First and foremost, there are three types of cookies in a box.  The White Wine box consists of Apricot Sage, Peanut Butter Chocolate and Ginger Molasses which pair well with Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc.  Since I didn’t have the middle two, I gave these a try with ONEHOPE Chard and Sauv Blanc and was blown away.

  1. Sauvignon Blanc + Apricot Sage = I was a little skeptical about this one.  The ONEHOPE Sauvignon Blanc is one of my favorite wines ever with its crisp, citrus finish and I was worried that the combination with the Apricot would make the pairing overwhelmingly citrusy.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  The lightness of the Sauvignon Blanc was just enough to create a more full-bodied citrus flavor with the Apricot (without being overpowering) while enhancing the savory sage to a level I never thought possible.  I like sage?!  I guess so.  Delicious.
  2. Chardonnay + Apricot Sage =  What a great combination.  While there was no over-the-top, spectacular or surprising finish, the two together were still extremely well balanced and enjoyable.  I tasted much more Apricot in this pairing than the Sauvignon Blanc + Apricot and a little less sage.  Scrumptious.
  3. Chardonnay + Peanut Butter Chocolate = AAAMAZING.  Wow.  Tasting this together was like putting a piece of chocolate covered fruit in my mouth, enjoying every last second of it and then, BAM!  Peanut butter with a tiny hint of salt.  There is so much perfection going on in this 5-10 seconds of flavor that I ate another.
  4. Chardonnay + Ginger Molasses =  This pairing actually wasn’t recommended on the box, but I’m so glad I decided to give it a shot.  The Ginger Molasses wine pairing suggestions were Gewürztraminer and Pinot Grigio, neither of which I had, but I did have some leftover Chardonnay in my glass.  Since Ginger Snaps are one of my favorite cookies, I gave it a whirl and fell in love.  The ONEHOPE Chardonnay is really well balanced (not too sweet, not too buttery, not too oaky) so it allowed the flavor of the ginger to magnify tenfold without any other obtrusive favors.  Being that I LOVE ginger, I loved this combination.
Bravo, Cookies & Corks!  Can’t wait to try some more for next Wine Wednesday 🙂

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