Wine Lives and Breathes...so does my new blog's look.

Well, I did it. I changed to the new blogger layout. Yes, it is still the same me. Nothing changed there. But after some very useful suggestions and hints from my dear friend Katherine Andes, I decided it was time to go forward. You can get to her website by clicking on the "My Great Writer Friend" in my links list or you can just follow this link
After 30 plus years of tasting and enjoying wines, I have picked up a little bit of knowledge about wine but I am still a neophyte when it comes to websites, blogging and all that wonderful technical stuff. So her help was invaluable. I also pick up a lot of good info from her free newsletter which you can sign up for via her website.
My friend Carl Brown, who gets my newsletter and regularly leaves a comment on my blog, also is prompting me to get a little bolder and braver. He left a good suggestion in his comment on my "Champagne then and now"post. So thanks to all of you for your regular visits, comments and suggestions. I appreciate it very much. It spurs me on to the continued pursuit of the" fruit of the vine".
I could not do a post without at least one picture related to this subject. So enjoy this one. I took it in the Blue Grouse Vineyards and Winery on Vancouver Island. Those are lush Ortega grapes a few days away from picking. Oh and while we're at it, I am still having great fun preparing my Italian dishes.

Which leads me to my final note. In my next blog entry I will be telling you about the fabulous wine maker we met in Bolgheri. Alessandro Dondi makes some of the best wines we tasted while travelling through Tuscany.
Ciao!

2007....A Great Vintage for Wine!

Another year has come and gone and we will be bringing in the year 2007 with a Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial . It has been a turbulent year in the world of wine, what with acquisitions and continued grape gluts and all. Neo-prohibitionists not withstanding wine is rapidly becoming part of our culture. Just think where the wine industry in North America would be today if prohibition had never occurred. Then of course we have certain well meaning religious groups claiming the wine in the bible was just grape juice. Grapes and grape juice contain natural yeasts and without refrigeration or adequate sulfite levels it is pretty much impossible to prevent fermentation. I speak from personal experience when at one time I had purchased a five gallon pail of refrigerated Zinfandel juice from California. I kept it in a storage area overnight to begin the wine making process the next day. When I went to remove the lid it blew off with a spray of foamy, fermenting juice.

I believe 2007 will be an exciting year in the world of wine. You won't find me writing about a particular wine I might just have had the pleasure of tasting. What's the point. You probably wouldn't find it in your neck of the woods. Speaking of woods, that wish bone peace of wood in the picture was retrieved from my driveway after a recent winter storm. And of course the real wish bone is from our incredibly delicious free range Christmas turkey. My wish for all of you is, that you will have a happy, healthy and succesful 2007.

There will be many more entertaining and educational websites coming on stream. One web site that is leading the charge to educating North Americans about our wines is Appellation America.com. Be sure to bookmark it, if you haven't already done so. An amazing amount of info available on this site. Wineries as well will have increasingly informative and entertaining web sites. Check this one from Bodegas Castano, as well as the Moet & Chandon site above.

I leave you on this New Year's Eve with a quote from

the American playwright, Elmer Rice.

" You can have too much champagne to drink but you can never have enough."