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Home » Author Archives: Karen and Ken Geiszler: Winery-Sage.com
Author Archives: Karen and Ken Geiszler: Winery-Sage.com
Here you can find information on Winery-Sage.com bloggers bios and how the web site came to be.
Ken – Brief Bio
I am somewhere approaching middle age (which is everyone’s way of saying older than I want to be but I’m not dead yet). Isn’t it ironic that when some one claims to be middle aged, that would typically mean they plan on living to be 110? I can claim to be in my 40’s as long as the blog post gets published relatively quickly. I was born and raised in Northern California, and developed a passion for wine in my late 30s. I am married to Karen, the other principal in KG Web Publications, the partnership that publishes Winery-Sage.com. Our last name starts with “G”, hence the name “KG “ works for both of us – no top billing. Marriage is all about compromises.
When/if things slow down at work, I would like to get my certificate as a certified wine professional.
Karen – Brief Bio
Karen is slightly older than Ken (a point that never gets old – not hard to tell which of us wrote the biographies, is it?). She was born in Southern California but moved to Northern California in the mid 80’s. Ken claims it’s because she was looking for him. She ignores him, something at which she has become quite adept. She was a retail manager for a number of years and continued to work through our older child’s school years but became a stay at home mom for the 2nd one. To avoid going nuts, she volunteered at both kid’s schools. Now that the younger one has moved on to college and doesn’t want his parents within a three hour drive of the place, she has moved onto administering the web site and allowing the 90 pound Black Lab to take her for walks. She graciously allows Ken to think that they have compromised on a number of things even though she’s usually had the end game figured out from the beginning.
Joint Bio (Updated in late 2017)
Karen and Ken have now been married for almost 25 years and to date have still not had a fight since being married, probably because Karen has the patience of a saint. They live in the Silicon Valley area but have had a cabin just south of Yosemite (in the Bass lake area) for roughly 13 years and spend as much time up there as they can. The first 10 years was just relaxation. The last three has been lots of work recovering from damage caused by the Courtney Fire and then continuing on with a remodel. In 2018, they hope to spend as much as a third of their time up at the cabin.
They are now empty-nesters with with older soon being married and living in London with his new wife for the next two years and the younger one living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, getting his PHD in Bioinformatics. From where he got the brains is a complete mystery but the best guess is the dog. They are not sure what they did to drive their kids so far away but the only consolation is that both sons claim to want to move back to the Bay Area in the future.
Why was Winery Sage born - frankly, it’s too long of a story to post to include in here but if you are interested you can read about it at:
https://www.winery-sage.com/blog/general/winery-sage-com-birth-of-a-web-site/
Cheers!
Karen and Ken
The next morning we drove to Orvieto, a small hill town in Umbria that had been recommended by a number of people. It sits up on a volcanic hill that has been inhabited for at least three thousand years. It retains all of its medieval character due to an unusual agreement between the German and English armies in World War II. ...
The next day we took a train to Siena to see the sights. We were a bit disappointed because we learned — with both Siena and Florence — that the cities are okay, they have a number of pretty spectacular churches, but the real things to see are the items in the museums and they take far longer than we ...
Wine tasting in Tuscany has been a decades-long goal of Karen’s and mine, so when we finally got to Tuscany we knew we’d be spending some time in a winery. The interesting part is that, in Tuscany, Chianti reigns supreme. But in our little corner of heaven — San Gimignano — a curious wine grape called Vernaccia is the queen (it ...
Lucca was a one day stop over between Cinque Terre and Tuscany, but it turned out to be a real find. It’s completely surrounded by medieval walls and the tops are wide enough for biking, which we did the morning we left. Our hotel was on the main piazza which took the shape of the Roman amphitheater that once stood there. ...
Bergamo was great and we were really looking forward to Cinque Terre. Unfortunately, what we didn’t realize was — most of Western Europe had a three-day weekend and the UK had a whole week off and, you know what? They all descended on the highway between Bergamo and Cinque Terre. We fly for twelve hours to get away from California ...
Day five and we’re in Verona. We’re here because the maître d’ at my favorite Italian restaurant in New York City is from Verona and said it’s a beautiful city and we had to see it. Karen, of course, adores me and so was willing to go along with whatever I suggested (I typed that after she proof-read it if you ...
The first day in Venice, we just walked around all day and got a feel for the city. There are over 400 bridges, each linking what was once an island to the next island. The Venetians slowly filled in the gaps between the islands so that only the canals remained. We split up for lunch because Justin and Allison saw an ...
Fair warning to those looking for our normal wine posts… the first couple are just vacation posts for friends or for Karen and I when we get senile and can’t remember what we did when we were here… Danny finally graduated which means — Italy, here we come! We’ve been waiting to take this trip since he graduated from high school, ...
It’s almost summertime and the trinity of summer Holidays — Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day — cry out for BBQ. For us, that means BBQ paired with wine. Yeah, yeah — I know, summer time and BBQ means beer to most people but wine and BBQ pairings are great. Ah… but what type of wine to serve ...
Why did we split “Reading Wine Labels” into two posts? Two reasons, one is practical – I hate writing novel length posts, and I suspect the audience likes reading them even less. The other has to do with content. Part 1 identifies virtually everything that is required to be on a wine label, or if present, needs to adhere to predefined ...
