Just a very quick tidbit today, to point you over to the house of the venerable king of wine blogging satirical musings, the HoseMaster of Wine (a.k.a. comedian and former sommelier Ron Washam) where last week 1WD was masterfully roasted in effigy.  Consider me as charred as the inside of a heavily toasted American oak barrel, but equally honored to have been playfully lambasted by the master!

Oddly enough, I have a slight fear of puppets and clowns so I find his choice of graphic a bit haunting (see inset pic), though Ron couldn’t have known that at the time he posted it.  Spooky…

Now, for those of you who might read the HMW piece on 1WD and not find yourself nearly peeing from intense laughter as I almost did: you need to understand that I consider Ron a very talented writer and I’ve long been an admirer of his scathing wit, and you should know that I don’t take myself so seriously that I couldn’t enjoy his bursting of my ego’s Champagne bubbles.  I loved the article and I’m hoping that you will too.

In fact, I’m planning on sharing a bottle or two with Ron when I’m next in Napa – I just hope that I don’t give him too much more material for that laser-focused satirical pen of his (Ron, if you’re reading this, I have a long list of others who need bubble bursting, and I may toss the list in one direction when we meet and run away in the opposite direction, not unlike offering a sacrificial slab of chuck to a fierce guard dog as a distraction…).

Anyway, enjoy!

Cheers!

Yeah.  I know.  I’m late.  Whatever – I’ve got a two-year-old daughter.  At least I’m actually getting around to it, right?

I’ve got a simple resolution for 2010, actually, when it comes to 1WineDude.com, anyway:

Make 1WineDude.com “more betterer!”

The devil’s squarely in the details, of course, but the bottom line is that wine blogs, like wine brands, have increased in both quality and quantity, and there have never been more wine blogs pumping out higher-quality content than there are right now. Hell, just look at the list of nominees for the Wine Blog Awards.  Which means not only do I have to run to stand still, I need to continuously figure out how to add more and more value for you on these virtual pages.

Either that, or continue to dupe you into thinking that I know what I’m talking about (it ain’t easy!).

I’m grateful for each and every reader of this blog, and I realize that many of the same people who are pumping out great wine content are regular readers here; some are up-and-coming new voices, and are some long-standing and well-respected traditional (and non-traditional) talents in the wine world.  1WineDude.com is, more and more, becoming a place where “Intermediate” and “Expert” wine personalities can mingle and exchange ideas.

I sincerely hope that never changes.

So, in 2010, I’m trying to give you more to talk about, and more interesting things to talk about…

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Here’s one for the “it’s NOT just me” department:

Remember last week, when I jokingly poked fun (or, as my friends in the U.K. would say, “took the piss out of”) the current state of California vintage reports?

Well, most of the people who left comments and contacted me via twitter, facebook, and e-mail took the piece light-heartedly (thankfully!), and one of those cool people – who happens to work in the PR side of the wine biz – sent me a tool used in wine marketing meetings that proves that I am not the only one who finds humor in the situation of writing vintage reports with serious spin on them.

I give you Wine Bulsh*t Bingo.  Just don’t read it while drinking coffee or sipping wine, because you’ll end up either doing a keyboard-destroying spit-take, or unintentionally snorting wine up your nose – because this stuff is scathingly, laugh-out-loud funny.  Many thanks to the wonderful person (name withheld for obvious reasons) who passed this one along to me!

In other news, Dale Cruse over at the very cool DrinksAreOnMe.net blog has been running a series in which he asks wine bloggers to contribute short pieces of fiction, in which Dale provides the writer with a (usually racy) picture involving wine to act as the starting point and general muse of the submitted work.  Dale waited, and waited, and waited, and waited very patiently for my submission, which is months overdue but was finally completed last week (sorry, buddy!).  The piece (which Dale titled “The Innocence Slips Away”) is (unsurprisingly) odd and quirky, and involves a corkscrew, a bottle of Barolo, half-naked Southerners, a Godzilla movie, and the liquor control board.  Enjoy!

Cheers!

Ok.  I wasn’t going to post about this, because quite frankly I’m starting to feel like I am treading a very fine line between self-serving, ego-stroking promotion of this blog and giving legitimate props to folks who are helping to make 1WineDude.com successful.

This kind of tears me up because I’ve been blessed with some great shout-outs for the blog. Naturally, one wants to kind of celebrate that but also, and more importantly, give some attention, thanks and promotion to the people who have been kind to you.

But I think it makes for some potentially terrible reading.  At best, it comes off as (hopefully short and) heartfelt; at worst… “Weeeeee! Lookatme!” boring.  Of course, not acknowledging a shout-out has the potential of leaving the other party feeling scorned.

What’s a blogger to do?

Scylla, meet Charybdis…

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