Grape of the Day

 Welcome back!! As those of you who were regular or semi-regular readers know, I went about a year and a half writing original content off the top of my head. I ran out of steam. I ran out of ideas. Now I'm back, but not every day. Yesterday, I paid a visit to one of my seemingly favorite homes away from home -- the Delta Sky Club. For those who have never been in one, it's an airport lounge frequented for the most part by people who fly an awful lot on Delta as well as some who simply have the right credit cards or who spend more money on it than it is worth. In any event, almost all of the Sky Clubs have a bar with selections of complimentary alcoholic beverages as well as "premium" ones that you can pay for with dollars or with Sky Miles. Yesterday, being done with client interaction for the day and knowing I was not getting behind the wheel again for the day, I ventured to the Sky Club bar as did a seemingly professional woman probably about 40 years old. She orde...

I know; you drink beer on Super Bowl Sunday. But maybe you're not really a beer drinker. Perhaps you like wine better. But it's so hard to figure out what to drink with your Super Bowl food. Why is that? There is so much variety. If you're eating at the Super Bowl the way lots of other gluttonous Americans who plan to take Monday off from work do, you've got a huge variety of foods at your disposal. Let's go through them and see some of the problems: Chips and salsa -- salty and acidic Chips and veggie dip -- salty and green Barbecue of one type or another -- salty, a little spicy or a lot spicy, and likely somewhat fatty Wings -- spicy or lemony or garlicky or fried and maybe with blue or some combination Veggie platter -- somewhat bland, but the dips will change that Charcuterie platter -- fatty, sometimes spicy meats and cheeses that do or do not go with the meats All kinds of sandwiches usually with meats that fit into some of the catgories above Pizza More frie...

Let's get to the controversy first. This is not a debate about long-term shifts in climate on earth and what is or is not causing them. If that is the debate that you do want, there are plenty of places online that you can do that. Frankly, as someone who doesn't study climate science, my thoughts on the matter should no more influence yours than should any other random person's. Here is a fact. The last 10 years or so have been warmer across essentially our entire planet than they have been over any other 10 year period since people started using thermometers and recording temperatures for posterity. Roughly 50 years ago back in the 1970s, we had a multi-year period during which temperatures were much colder than norms over the same periods of manually or electronically recorded temperatures. Each has an effect on wine. Let's consider what this does to wine and to some extent why. And, before you think I've misled you, this is not about wine that might have been ma...

 I took 3 years off from this blog. Why? I write off the top of my head and the top of my head just wasn't coming up with new ideas. So, I stopped for quite a while and focused on some other things.  What, you ask? Work, life, family, volunteering, debate reviews. One of those has somewhat fallen off the radar, so the top of my head had an idea. Suppose you were a person just getting into wine or even if you've been drinking it for a while had never really explored. What might I tell you to do? Do not drink Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon for a year.  That's right. I'm telling you to stay away from two of the most popular grapes in the world. Why would I do that? Well, among white wines, Chardonnay is about as full-bodied as it gets (yes, I could name some obscure grapes that might dispel that, but that's not the point) and among red wines, Cabernet is about as full-bodied as it gets. So, when people start their wine adventures with those fuller-bodied wines, they ...

You sit down at a table at a restaurant and persuse the menu and the wine list. After a few minutes, you choose your food for the evening and a bottle of wine to share that goes with the food. Upon ordering the bottle, you can see that look in your server's eyes. She wonders what I have just asked for and how it is that she is going to get it served. You see, it's the first time any of her guests have ever ordered a bottle of wine. And, she doesn't know what to do. And, then to make matters worse, there is a chance she is reading this. But, then again, that's not all bad because some stories end better than others. In this particular case, she took one of the alternatives available to her. She approached a manager or beverage manager, I'm not sure which, for help. This manager came to the table and showed our hero how to open and serve the wine. Well, sort of. This manager says she is going to hold training for the staff so that they can all see the right way to do ...

I'll be one to say it and I'll say it here. I really do not like having to look at a restaurant menu or worse yet, a restaurant wine list on my phone. The whole craze of using QR (quick response in case you weren't sure) codes to get to a menu or a drink or wine list is a craze that makes me crazy. I'm not as facile as most of the people half my age and my eyes just don't like looking at the list either in a microscopic size or pinching it so that it's bigger, but then having to scroll all over the place to see what I really want to see. Imagine a 5-page wine list or a 10-page list or a 200-page list on your phone. Maybe you can, but for me, it is a nightmare that just won't quit. But, for restaurants, there are hueg advantages. If wines are kept online so that diners and drinkers can see the list on their phones, then restaurants can easily track inventory. They can also track the likes and dislikes of frequent guests. They can see how people are choosing t...