The strange part about it is that if I’d agreed to relocate I would still have a very lucrative job at the same company – but after 13+ years, I’ve basically had enough of that high-stress corporate environment (making a very long story very short).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m having some doubts. Did I do the right thing?  Is the economy gonna pick back up?  Can I make any real money doing this wine stuff?

You know, the standard stuff: Man doesn’t like shore; Man leaves shore; Man loses sight of shore; Man practically pees himself for losing sight of the shore.

So, let’s just agree that the title was a total bait-and-switch deal and move on, ok?

As odd as it sounds, this was an occasion to celebrate, cholesterol numbers be damned.  So we celebrated at Dude Central, to the tune of six bottles of wine (we did not finish them), all of them from the sample pool with the exception of the first wine (which was one from Mrs. Dudette’s personal stash and predates our marriage).

At this point you probably (and understandably) care more about what we drank than about my future, so let’s get cracking…

1. NV Pommery Champagne Brut Royal (Reims): I like my Champagne as yeasty as they can get, and this one delivers as it tastes like they tried to stick an entire loaf of bread into the bottle. Some nice overtones of flowers as well. But the fruit plays a minor role, so you’d better love bread action before you think about throwing down the cash for this.
2. 2008 Grooner Gruner Veltliner (Kremstal): What a great introduction to Gruner, and an affordable one too at around $15 (or less).  Wines like these – with citrus, bracing acidity, spice and garden-veggie aromas – are totally killer with salads because they compliment the flavors while cutting through the vinaigrette. Also stands up to veggie white pizza.
3. 2006 Heron Hill Ingle Vineyard Riesling (Finger Lakes): Do you remember those commercials where the person stuck a big straw directly into a huge piece of fruit, as if they were going to drink the entire thing, pulp and all? This wine is just like that, only the fruit is an enormous lime.  It’s a really solid offering from this consistent FL producer and I’d even go so far as to say that Heron Hill is starting to capture a sense of place, a terroir, from that vineyard location.
4. 2007 Olson Ogden Wines Unti Vineyard Syrah (Dry Creek Valley): This is a hell of wine.  It’s a big wine, but it’s the kind of ‘complex big’ wine (the finish moves from concentrated red berry to smoked bacon) that makes people who don’t like big CA wines do a triple-head-take move.  It’s even better on day two if you let it sit and exercise sufficient restraint to leave some of it in the bottle for the next day.  Give it four years in the bottle, then guzzle.

5. 2006 Rockaway Cabernet Sauvignon (Alexander Valley): It’s really criminal to open this wine this early, when it so clearly needs 5+ years to fully round out the harsher tannins on the mid-palate.  I know it’s a sample, and I’m supposed to do that, but it still hurts.  There’s a lot going on on this wine, and it’s even better than the inaugural release that was bottled last year, which means (to me, anyway) that they really are sitting on some of the best fruit in Alexander Valley.  But… it’s huge, it has ultra-concentrated dark fruit and spice, and the booze is really potent.  It’s like that Apache Chief guy from the Superfriends cartoon, where he would say “Inyuk-chuk” and grow to some massive size – I felt like a glass of this wine was doing that at my dining room table, with black fruits growing so big they overtook the entire room.  I know, I’m a weirdo.  Anyway, if you can find this wine for under $70 I’d say you were getting your money’s worth.
6. 2005 Kanu Kia-Ora Noble Late Harvest (Stellenbosch): You knew I was ending this celebration with a sticky, right?  This was my first Chenin-based late-harvest, Botrytis-infected wine from South Africa.  It’s promising, but a bit of an acquired taste because it combines fruit, nuts, honey, and secondary aromas – I love that and thought it was pretty damn tasty, but you may want something more simple to end your meal. I wrote that it was “like almond brittle made with apricot & doused in kerosene. But in a totally good way.”

Cheers!

I’m not usually at a loss for words (and I suspect that the condition is temporary and will wear off in a few nanoseconds), but my reaction to 1WineDude.com winning Best Wine Blog in the Foodbuzz.com Blog Awards is… uhmm…. WOW! And THANK YOU.  Thank you to Foodbuzz, to all of the people who took the time out to nominate and vote for the blog, and to you for putting up with me for so long!  Fellow nominee, ‘friend of the Dude’ and all-around wine blogging powerhouse Dr. Vino was voted “blogger you would most want to be your personal sommelier” (the other wine-related awards category).

I was quite surprised when I found out that 1WineDude was even nominated (which I’d discovered after voting had already started, upon visiting the site to vote for a friend’s blog in another category).  In fact, I didn’t even know that there was a Best Wine Blog category in the awards at first.  I was both amazed and humbled to have been nominated at all, and the competition was stiffer than the wooden staves that go into vats of el-cheapo American Chardonnay.  So I’m also amazed and humbled to have won.

I’m not gonna get all ‘Dick Cheney re-elected’ on you and say it’s a ‘clear mandate from the people’ in support of taking wine seriously but not taking yourself too seriously, and I don’t want to make more out of the honor than it should be, but winning this award did give me a few seconds of serious pause, because Foodbuzz.com seems to be a pretty big friggin’ deal right now (at least in the U.S.).

I was fortunate enough to have been contacted by Foodbuzz.com early in their development, as part of their Featured Publishers program, and I’ve watched them build a (very) large community of (very) talented foodies in a (very) short amount of time.  Their success is actually a bit staggering – Foodbuzz.com now gets millions of visits every month.  Their reach is, in a word, enormous (and it’s still growing).

Anyway, following is a snippet of the internal dialog going on in my head during that few seconds of serious pause (FSSP):

Me: Maybe 1WineDude.com really is making a difference in the world of wine and helping people to take an emboldened approach a potentially daunting topic? I suppose that stranger things have happened, right?

Me2: You mean like three wine critics and one Japanese cartoon driving a massive amount of wine spending dollars worldwide. Also, why are you using words like ‘emboldened’ and ‘daunting’ when you’re talking to yourself? No one should use 15th century words when they’re talking to themselves.

Me: Good points.  Jerk.

During the FSSP, I did contemplate taking a more serious approach on the virtual pages of the blog, now that I can officially call 1WineDude “award winning.”  Fortunately, that didn’t last very long.

I have one regret about of this this – I wasn’t able to make the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival, which by all accounts appears to have been a huge success (both Randall Grahm and fellow nominee Alder Yarrow had good things to say about the event while it was unfolding via twitter).  I plan on doing everything that I can to make the trip for next year’s event.

Congrats to all of the winners – it’s definitely worth checking out the other Foodbuzz Blog Award winners, especially if you’re a foodie-at-heart; there’s some really impressive blogging happening there.

Cheers!

CNBC.com has updated their annual expert recommendations on wines for the holidays – and this year, there are a few interesting parties among the panel of wine smarties contributing their wine picks for your 2009 fourth quarter celebratory dining table.

Like me, for instance.

I know what you’re thinking.  How the hell did YOU get on the same list as Jancis Robinson?!??

I had the same reaction, my friends!

I’m in great, great company on this one, with quite a few fellow bloggers gracing the CNBC.com lineup, most of whom I’m happy and proud to call friends of the Dude:

• Paul Mabray of VinTank
• Bill Daley from the Chicago Tribune
• Jancis Robinson (www.JancisRobinson.com)
• Ryan Opaz of www.catavino.net
• Gary Vaynerchuk (www.GaryVaynerchuk.com)
• Craig Drollett (Bin Ends & Taste Live)

There are some great wine picks offered up in the list, so head on over to CNBC.com and check it out before you do your holiday dinner shopping this year.

Cheers!