I could tell that I wasn’t quite myself based on the number of business cards in my backpack.

There were dozens of those little cards left, staring back at me when I opened my pack.  Cards that I should have given away to friends old and new at the Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla.  The “normal” Joe would have been handing out those cards left and right. Instead, they were practically shouting their futility – after all, what good are they to me? I already know who I am.

It wasn’t the fact that I had been in a new place for the first time, seeing new faces (I’m well used to that scenario); it also wasn’t the fact that back home one of our 100+ year-old trees came down on our neighbors garage in a fierce storm, cleaving it nearly into two (no one was hurt, apart from the trees).  The reason I wasn’t myself was that my teacher was dying.

My teacher was my dog, Sam.  He passed away while I was at the conference (if you were in attendance and I appeared out of it or seemed dismissive, please understand that it wasn’t you, it was most definitely me).

Sam was pretty sprightly for a guy in his 80s (people years, of course), still weighing in at 85 lbs. of mostly muscle.  Still fairly strong, too (he had once accidentally broken my left hand when we were out for a run).  Stubborn, too – in fact, I used to joke that I could sum up Sam’s thoughts in one sentence (“Hey guys – this is what I want to do now”).

Our experience with Sam was more Marley and Me than Lassie – he had a penchant for stealing bread, licking the icing off of cakes on the kitchen counter, eating through metal cans of dog food, and practically destroying the house during thunderstorms.  BUT… he was one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever known.

Sam taught me a lot about how to really appreciate wine (yes, I’m serious – read the post).  But his greatest lessons were in teaching me compassion and patience – the latter being something that I’ve often cited as the ‘secret sauce’ of wine blogging (and life in general, really; yes, I’m serious – watch the vid).

My only real regret is not that I wasn’t there to say goodbye when Sammy passed – it’s that I wasn’t the quickest study when it came to fully grasping all of those lessons in compassion and patience that Sammy tried to teach me.

Here’s to a friend, a sweet soul, an old teacher – long may his lessons be remembered.

Cheers!

Who’s a Big Winner today?

YOU’RE a Big Winner today.

No doubt that the wide world of wine media is awash in well-weathered year-end recaps (not too mention consonation!), with thoughts about the wines and wine-related happenings of a 2009 that has nearly gone by.  While I enjoy the year-end recap thoughts as much as the next guy or gal, I’m not going to provide another look-back wine list or article review, mostly because I already have those posts published and can’t fool you into reading another one because you’re too smart.

No, I just want to tell you how lucky you are this year, wine-wise anyways.

Yeah, YOU.  You’re one lucky S.O.B.

Look at it this way: Was 2009 perfect when it comes to wine?  Of course not.  But consider this:

You have access to more wine of higher quality and for lower prices than at any other time in the history of the world. 

You also have access to more sources of quality information about wine (and all aspects of how it is made, distributed, etc.) than ever before.

So, you not only can get great wine for a great price, you also can gain as much knowledge about wine as you’re hungry for, at almost no cost to you.

Think about that for a second.  Most of you reading this have more opportunity when it comes to wine than your parents ever dreamed of.  Unless you’re like 14.  In which case, you should know that I do not have reviews of Peppermint Schnapps on this website.  And no, I am not going to buy some for you at the liquor store down the street.  Look, kid, just buzz off already, will ya?!?

The cherry-on-top of this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario is that the price of entry for your say in the growing wine conversation (which can positively influence where the wine industry goes in 2010 and beyond) is approximately $0.00.  In short, you have a wealth of wine knowledge available at your fingertips, and as they told you at the end of the G.I. Joe cartoons in the mid-eighties, "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle."  And knowledge, as we all know (ha-ha!), is power.

In other words, who’s the big winner after the wine trials, tribulations, travails, and victories of 2009?  YOU are, my friend, you are.

So, as we draw the curtain on 2009, take a moment to toast yourselves, as you are potentially the most powerful influencer of the future of wine.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

(images: bargreatharry.com)

Well… does it?

I ask myself this question whenever I receive a review copy of a wine book, which has been… a lot lately, it seems.

So here comes four-time James Beard award-winner Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, and her new book Drink This: Wine Made Simple.  Another entry in a (very) crowded field.  It also happens to be excellent, so I suppose the world could use another wine intro book.  Drink This is excellent primarily because Grumdahl’s prose is lucid and entertaining.  Her writing is also down-to-earth.

But excellent writing chops wouldn’t matter a hill of pomace if Grumdahl didn’t know what she was talking about, or if her method for learning about wine proved too rudimentary, too complex, or hindered by some wine-related prejudice.  Thankfully, none of that proves to be the case.  In fact, Drink This is so good that its overall quality makes up for the fact that Grumdahl uses the word ‘varietal’ as a synonym for grape variety (which it’s not).  In fact, she does this so often that I nearly threw the book across the room (I say ‘nearly’ because my sample copy is a hardcover book, and I didn’t want to damage my living room drywall).

The thing that makes Drink This so compelling is that Grumdahl knew writing long before she knew wine. As a result, her method for learning wine (more on that in moment) is likely to  work, because it’s the method that she used herself.

The method?  Well, it’s a variation on simplification…

Read the rest of this stuff »