“On the midnight street
No moon and no stars
No one around to calm you down
And to soften the stings to my heart
The dream is sand in my hands
The dream becomes sand in my hands”

-Morrissey, Good Looking Man About Town

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

-Japanese proverb

image: Wine.Answers.com

OK, folks…

First, an explanation of why I have been several months behind on writing up producer features here on 1WD (Amici, Red Car, some high-end KJ brand stuff, and several Sicily items are all in that pipeline, waiting patiently for me to get my act together). The short version of the story: I am getting divorced, and it’s an enormous time, energy, and emotion suck.

So now those of you who have been giving me crap about only posting references to my paying gigs know why I am so behind on things (I barely have enough bandwidth and energy to get the paying work in on time). I am the one who filed, so I am not looking for any pity here (and I am having far more good-to-great days than bad at that moment). Everything that has transpired on the home-front since my marriage crisis started has more-or-less showed that ending the marriage is absolutely the right thing to do, so little sleep is being lost on that front now. The kid is also doing great, so the tippy-top priority is well in-hand.

While I am not fishing for sympathy, I do want to tell you that I am deeply grateful for the enormous and touching outpouring of support that I have received about this situation, both publicly and privately, from so many of you. I will never, ever forget it, and not one sunset passes right now that I don’t list those words of encouragement near the top of my list when I review the things for which I am most grateful right now.

So I hope that you’ll understand why today I am giving you yet another pointer to more of my paying gig work (I know, I suck)…

Here are this month’s Wine.Answers.com articles for your wine-soaked reading pleasure:

Three Things That You Didn’t Know About Carinena Wine Country – Ok, you probably don’t even know two facts abuot Spain’s Carinena; but you should, because there are some nice values in old vine reds coming out of this historic, mountainous, and currently-budget-mindedly-priced region.

Wine Product Review: AlcoMate Premium Breathalyzer – I know, right? Look, I am NOT saying you should be drinking and driving; but I am saying that you ought to know your limit, and while not inexpensive, this little breathalyzer seems about as easy to use in the medium price point as any available. The upside of the AlcoMate Premium Breathalyzer is that it doesn’t need to be re-calibrated (more on that in the review).

Wine Book Review: “The Mad Crush” by Sean Cristopher Weir – Now, this is some entertaining wine-related reading. The Mad Crush (which chronicles the making of a 1995 vintage Central Coast red wine) is terse of prose, short of length, and long of entertaining storytelling.

Wine Product Review: Wine Region Art By City Prints – Wine and art more often ends up as wine and gaudily cheesy than wine and tastefully artistic. Enter these stylish wine region maps by City Prints, which come as close to artistic as wine region maps can get (I’ve still got my sample on the wall, anyway).

Cheers!