Hi there! My name is Alex. I write emails and in C# at Microsoft at day, I like various liberal staff on Twitter at night. I’m a diabetic on high fat/low carbs all day around. I’m a wine enthusiast. And now I’m also a home wine maker. And here I’m going to keep notes of my journey.

Today I drove with my son to Carthage Vineyard/Knight Hill Winery located in Zillah, WA and picked-up three 6-gallon buckets of three different varieties of grapevines: Grenache, Petite Sirah, Mourvèdre. I’m going to try to make famous red blend GSM, which actually is made of Sirah. So I’m going to call mine GPS instead.

Why Carnation Anapa? I live now in Carnation, WA. My great-great-grandfather Maxim Alexandrovich Boyko-Baba lived in Anapa, Krasnodar Krai, Russia. Somewhere around 1923-24 he has planted a vineyard. Less than 3 years later, shortly before the first harvest, someone wrote a donos. Shortly thereafter he was dekulakizated. In the memory of his life and efforts and to restore the family tradition I call this project Carnation Anapa.