Rambling Through the Vineyards

It's another writer's block day (HINT: I need occasional topic suggestions and you can put them in comments or on any of the social media platforms where I push this material), so I decided to reminisce about where we've been on this journey.

I started this blog on March 23 because I woke up and my weekly routine of getting on a plane to go somewhere every week had come to an end. I needed a therapy replacement and this was it. During that period, I've done 209 posts previous to this one, written about well over 100 unique wine grapes, taken you to more than 30 countries, and visited all 7 continents (yes, we did go to Antarctica). We've explored grapes that you know and grapes that you've likely never heard of until you read about them here.

So, how do I write these? How much research do I do while I am writing? The simple answer, although perhaps just slightly misleading is none. I write off the top of my head. Where I "cheat" without specifically noting those cheats is that I do use the internet or books for maps, spelling, and pronunciation, and on rare occasion to check my remembrance of history. On the grape and wine descriptions, however, I don't.

Now, that's not to say that I might not have read something a week ago that prompted what I wrote. But, what's in your head is in your head, or at least that's my feeling.

Have I been to all these places to drink wine? Nope. Only a few of them.

Have I tasted wine from all these grapes? Nope. Only a small percentage of them.

So, when I tell you about the warm breezes in the Meditteranean-side vineyards of Sicily or the foehn that warms the vineyards in Liechtenstein, I think it's correct, but it's all in my mind. When I take you on a drive through the pine trees on twisty roads going up and down hills, most of the time, I;m making this up although I think I am correct.

All that said, I think my wine descriptions are pretty darn accurate, at least to the extent that you can take all the wines of a particular grape or of that grape in that geography and lump them together.

But, today, being a Friday, meaning you more likely than not don't have to work tomorrow, I'm going to encourage you to go through this blog, find one thing that I have written that interested you and challenge you to taste that wine tonight.

Please enjoy and hopefully the writer's block will be gone tomorrow.


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