A crazy quilt round-up of this month’s wine-ing. No transitions provided.
Texier 2004 Vieilles Vignes Châteauneuf du Pape Blanc ($36) - I won’t kid yous guys, I never can see paying the money for CDP white. This is one of my wine blind spots and the one Frenchie category where I can find something as tasty […]

…so the tapeworm sticks his head out of the guy’s ass and says, “Hey! Where’s my lemon cookie?” And the doctor hits him with a mallet.
But seriously, tonight Stephen Colbert will emcee the annual correspondents dinner at the White House. Joe Wilson and his outed CIA agent wife Valerie Plame will attend (awkward). I will […]

Oooooh eeeee! You know, watching grass grow is not as boring as it sounds. Look at that grass (I gave it an Ernie just to show yous). I thought of it as an experiment, like growing a beard. And the cats liked it–bounding around like they were prowling the African veldt. (also a great short […]

Well, it’s official. The ass monkeys known as Southern Wine & Spirits have finally roofied a Washington state distributor into “surrendering their catalog.” For those who have never had the unique joy of dealing with wholesalers (and by joy I mean terrible pain just below the coin slot), Southern Wine & Spirits is to the […]

So, I was back home in Chicago all weekend, not doing a damned thing. Just eating lots of assorted meats, reading, snacking on bon bons, and flipping through magazines.
Where I came upon this:

This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Can you just hear the boardroom pitch? “Soooo…how can we get more women to partake […]

For those who wrote in angry about my criticism of the commercialization of Easter…

I’m sorry.

Lots of talk on the hill about immigration these days. Immigration, to me is an understood, unwritten right of the constitution. Who wrote the constitution? Immigrants. Rules don’t change for brown skin or certain religious affiliations. Immigration is this country’s entire damn raison d’etre!
This issue reminds me of one of Tyler’s speeches in Fight Club:
Look […]

It’s another one of those holidays where every wine writer sees fit to come up with a new angle for pairing the juice with a salty, optionally maple-glazed Easter ham. (yawn) My advice? You’re already consuming so much salt, fat, and sugar… drink whatever you want. (But when in doubt, go with pink or off-dry […]

Oh, did I tell you I was being sued? Well, I was. It’s been a nut in my muffin for months, but it’s all settled now. Turns out my Spidey senses in regards to the nefarious boob, er plaintiff, were dead on. Never try to cheat a Sicilian.
So I celebrated by treating myself to a […]

I wanted to talk about Eric Texier all by his lonesome, after meeting him last week at the special Louis/Dressner tasting. “I try to keep my alcohol low and acidity high. I’m a very old-fashioned guy,” he said. Vrai ça, monsieur.
Three regions stuck in Eric’s mind as he travelled the world to gain insight […]