Deluxe Foods of Aptos has a splendid selection of local wines. I sometimes spend ages there just browsing through the latest and greatest from various wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation. It was there that I found a Jason-Stephens Estate Merlot—2008 Santa Clara Valley. With an abundance of body and structure, this is a Merlot...

As city officials move forward with plans for an armored police vehicle, the vehicle’s earliest supporter is now backing away. Congressmember Sam Farr signed a letter in 2013, as reported by GT last December, supporting funds for an armored police vehicle—or a “Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE) Incident Response Vehicle” for the Santa Cruz...

First: yes, it's true, this is not your grandfather's senior magazine. In fact, as the writers in this issue illustrate over and over again, no one even wants to be called a "senior" anymore, because no one feels like one. That's one meaning of this magazine's admittedly tongue-in-cheek name: taking on this new phase of life...

Films This WeekCheck out the movies playing around town.With: Reviews Movie Times click here.Santa Cruz area movie theaters > ....... New This Week CINDERELLA The Disney studio continues to plumb the depths of its own backlist with live-action remakes of its cartoon classics. Kenneth Branagh directs a promising cast, including Lily James in the title role,...

Win tickets to see the Santa Cruz County Symphony - Pacific Perspectives at the Santa Cruz Civic on SantaCruz.com Featuring works by two Bay Area composers, Santa Cruz County Symphony’s aptly named Pacific Perspectives presents compositions by the late Lou Harrison, and the symphony’s own maestro, Daniel Stewart. Stewart’s Sinfonia includes nods to various pop cultural...

No. It was a complete and total misguided attempt by people that probably have rich parents to disrupt thousands of peoples lives, and it just makes no sense. It was pointless. Kevin Roberts, Santa Cruz, Mortgage Banker             No, not this one. This one went overboard and has people very angry...

Local rockers Rayburn Brothers are all about brotherly love and harmony, but the whole thing actually started out as a Craig Rayburn solo project. Craig has played music his whole life, but hadn’t until recently attempted a professionally recorded solo album—and it came out great, a nice blend of Americana, rock, and that ’70s California sound...

Spare parts don’t quite work together in ‘Chappie’ Movies, like any other art form, are interactive in one crucial way. What a viewer gets out of them depends on what she brings to the experience. One hundred people in the same auditorium at the same time will see one hundred different movies; it’s all about perspective....

Michael Eckerman’s free-form rock work mimics the sea Michael Eckerman tinkers, experiments, and fabricates his undulating stonework in an Eastside compound that looks as if J.R.R. Tolkien had settled down in suburban bohemia. Eckerman calls what he does “free-form rock work.” That pretty much describes him, too. You’ve seen his work—in sudden spherical monoliths that pop...