I first met the World Wine Guys (otherwise known as Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen) when in New York City tasting through a shedload of New Zealand Sauv Blancs and Pinot Noirs (and learning how the Kiwis shuck oysters).

At the time, they told me that they were in throes of writing not a wine tome (despite their impressive resume of wine publication contributions), but a… cook book.

They Summer (now there’s a verb only ascot-wearing jet-setters could love) at a place called Fire Island in the Hamptons (which I like to call the South Fork, because it pisses Hamptonites off when I do that), where there are few restaurants. Out of necessity, they therefore spent a lot of time devising meals and procuring the local fresh produce to make them during their Summer holidays. The result of their experience is the brand-new – and quite excellent – Fire Island Cookbook, recently released by Atria Books (hardback will set you back about $20, the eBook version runs about $15 – I received a sample copy).

To celebrate the dawn of Summer, I’m giving away a hardback copy of The Fire Island Cookbook – here’s how to get in on that action…

For a chance to win, leave a comment on this post and let us know your fave Summer food and wine pairing (I’m particularly interested in your go-to Summer wines… for some reason I’ve been craving Vermentino myself…). On June 5th (in one week), I will randomly pick a commenter from those comments, who will then take home a copy of the book.

Simple enough, right? So get crackin’ – let us know about those awesome Summer culinary picks!

Cheers – and good luck!

It’s been a while since we’ve done a giveaway, and so when I was contacted by Fibers.com to potentially partner up and give away one of their wine-themed t-shirts I couldn’t resist.

This is primarily because they combine wine with one of my closet indulgences: slogans so bad that they become fantastic. I’m not at all religious, but I’ve long been fascinated with the epically, awesomely terrible slogans posted on church billboards; they are just so heinously good (if that makes sense). For example, some gems that I’ve encountered during my driving travels:

“If you give the devil a ride, sooner or later he’s gonna want to drive.”

“God doesn’t want shares of your life; He wants controlling interest!”

“God answers ‘Knee Mail’”

That last one is sooooo wonderfully terrible!

Anyway, you’ve got a chance to win a free, customizable wine t-shirt from Fibers.com just by commenting on this here post! To maximize the fun (for me, anyway!), to become eligible you need only comment here with your favorite terribly awesome wine slogan. Ideally, you’ll come up with puns as wonderfully bad as the ones those churches are able to churn out, only wine-related.

I’m thinking along the lines of “Making good wine is a skill; making fine wine is an art; unless your name is Rudy Kurniawan, in which case it’s probably a federal offense!” or “I once had budding career in wine growing, but the bad economy green-harvested it.” You gotta admit, those are so bad that they could become endearing… anyway…

In one week I will randomly select a winner from the commenters, and contact them via email with the details on how to claim their Tee.

So get commentin’ and show off your creative side!

Cheers – and good luck!

With the buzz happening around the Weekly Wine Quiz, I’ve got wine trivia on the (vino-soaked) brain lately. So it seemed serendipitous that I was contacted by the folks at Trivia Knows to try out their new cross-platform mobile wine trivia game, Wine Knows Trivia.

They invited me to take a sample test rive of the game on the iPhone, and I can say that I am fairly impressed – the interface is slick, there’s a bit of game-addiction action as you rack up bottles that measure your winnings/progress (which you can then share via twitter, Google+ and Facebook for bragging rights among your social circle as to who has the most wine smarties). And we all know that wine knowledge makes you appear sexier to your potential amorous pursuits (just sayin’).

And now YOU have a chance to win a copy of Wine Knows Trivia for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, because we’re giving away a redemption code for the app to THREE lucky commenters this week!  Here’s the deal: you comment on this post, and at 9PM ET on Friday, January 27th I will randomly select three winners from the comments who will receive a redemption code via e-mail (if you win, you need to act fast – after February 3rd, the codes evaporate into the ether, never to be seen again!). Comment discussion topic coming after the jump.

Some of the questions in the Wine Knows trivia game are pretty friggin’ difficult – I found a few that rivaled those posed within the exams of the certifications for which I sat over the years. so it should keep all but the most die-hard wine geeks entertained…

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The first thing most people over the age of twenty-five think of when you ask them to name a song about wine is probably UB40’s Red Red Wine, which is ironic because they’re all totally drinking beer in the vid for that tune.

In a similarly ironic case of music-meets-wine creative worlds colliding, the band I’ve been playing in for… well… for a long time (some of you will remember us as the dudes who recorded a rock version of the Snow Miser/Heat Miser song, and a reggae/dub take on the Oompa Loompa Theme – we’re kinda into the holidays), has just released a video (available for your viewing pleasure below, after the jump) for a tune titled Wine Kissing Days.

The ironic part: the song is about the social pleasures of sharing wine (a near-constant theme among these virtual pages), was filmed in part at local PA producer Chaddsford Winery (which has been profiled here) BUT… apart from playing bass on the tune I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. More on that in a minute or two. Also, since we know that the music played during wine tasting impacts the qualities that people recall about the wine, if I were a tasting room manager I’d buy a few copies (you know, like, 10,000 or so) of this song. Just sayin’.

Anyway, you can hit up iTunes to grab the tune (and the album from which it comes, “Tricky, Seabass & the Hun” – and damn, it sure makes me feel old to even talk about the conceit of an album at this point), but I’m giving away a copy of the new Steve Liberace Band CD (another near-ancient conceit!) to three lucky randomly-selected commenters!…

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