Richard J. Alley

Food feature for The Commercial Appeal

Aug. 22, 2012

In vino veritas. In wine there is truth. And the truth is, Bill Sharpe says, making wine is pretty easy.

He should know, as he and wife, Carol, have been making and bottling their own wine at home since 2004. In that time, the Oakland, Tenn., couple have produced about 1,000 gallons — or 5,000 bottles — of wine.

It began as an appreciation for wine itself, and a hobby of visiting vineyards while traveling. A brief flirtation with buying a winery (until the prospect of so many acres and so much cleaning and maintenance became overwhelming) became a passion for these oenophiles to produce their own blends at home.

Of course, such an interest begins with the wine itself. “We’ve enjoyed wine all of our adult life,” Bill said.

“Because I never did drink very much, I started out with the boxed wines,” Carol added. “And then as we started going to different functions, mainly with his company, I started branching out to the rieslings, the sweeter wines, and then I got into the drier wines, the chardonnays, the pinot grigios and the sauvignon blancs. The chardonnay is my favorite.”

“I’ll put our white wines up against anybody’s,” Bill says.

Bill, an engineer with the Pickering Firm, and Carol, who is recently retired (“She does most of the work now, the bottling,” Bill says) from Mercury Print Co., not only make the wine for themselves and to give away to friends, but it’s also an enterprise that has afforded them much fun and much low-cost wine to drink … (read more)

Centerpiece story for The Memphis Daily News

April 19, 2012

Companies fill latest green niche as homeowners turn to organic yards

For most people these days, the descriptive word “green” evokes thoughts on diminishing consumption and environmental chivalry, and not necessarily the lush colors of an early spring such as Memphis has seen this year.

For Kalki Winter, however, it means both.

As the owner of eScape, he has an eye toward the quality of backyard ornamentation, as well as his customers’ overall quality of life.

Winter began the organic landscape company last October after a 12-year stint in management with ServiceMaster Landscape.

He said the mission of eScape is to offer “sustainable, site-specific landscape design with a focus on using native and zone appropriate plant material, as well as refurbished, recycled and repurposed building materials.” … (read more)

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

April 15, 2010

My children’s aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and Toby, just returned from a 10-day trip to Spain. They visited the village of Robledillo de la Jara and the metropolis of Madrid. They sampled new foods, saw centuries-old architecture, watched a bullfight and met new and exciting people.

My family and I recently returned from the local hardware store just off Summer Avenue.

We spent my wife’s — she’s a school teacher — and kids’ spring break building a tree house and planting a garden.

The house is 7 feet off the ground with a zip line that will carry a kid 50 feet through the grove of pine trees behind our house. The only thing missing at this point is any sort of railing, some type of safety precaution.

Despite the lack of safety (or maybe because of it), this is the tree house I always wanted as a child. A Swiss Family Robinson structure, a home that would have made Tarzan proud.

Some people, especially here in the South, may look at it and think “deer stand,” but I know differently. In my mind it rivals Frank Lloyd Wright’s house, Fallingwater, for design and placement within nature.

It is Falling Daughter … (read more)

Home & Garden feature for The Commercial Appeal

September 25, 2009

Norman Dean of Cordova says people stop all the time and ask “what do you have growing there?”

What is that strange plant with its thick leaves sporting spikes that look to do harm, sending out offshoots that sprout up around it like so many children? Is it native to this area? To this planet?

The plant in question is a century plant (Agave americana), so named because it is said to bloom once every hundred years, an undertaking so strenuous that the effort eventually kills it.

This plant, which decorates the front corner of Dean’s brick Cordova home on a street lined with well-manicured lawns, measures about 5 feet tall and its width, from tip to tip of the longest of its gray-green leaves, is nearly 8 feet … (read more)