Category Archives: GENERAL

News Flash: Red Wine Is Good For You And Guess What? I Couldn’t Care Less

Other than my father, who is a sensible, conservative Swiss fellow who drinks only in moderation, I grew up in a family of sloppy, out-of-control lushes.  We drank together, we drank alone.  We drank to forget, we drank to remember; … Continue reading

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A Smattering of Silly Scat From Michigan’s NWS Show, 2012

(NWS = ‘National Wine & Spirits instead of ‘Not Work Safe’—which is the only reason I showed up, damn it.) Within the hallowed halls of St. John’s in Plymouth, where wannabe priests once learned their trade, where awe-inspiring interpretations of … Continue reading

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Beware That Bottle Of Romani-Contée: It May Be A Knock-Off

It’s a side of human nature which we may not be proud of, but which we all possess.  That side that causes us inexpressible delight when our wealthy brother-in-law shows off his brand new luxury watch and we inform him … Continue reading

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Anatomy Of A Hangover And What To Do About It

In the previous century, when I was at university as a psych major, B.F. Skinner was all the rage, and my Operant Conditioning and Behavior Analysis class focused on the relative non-efficiency of negative reinforcement.  It stressed that ‘punishment’ changes … Continue reading

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Sammy And Jack, Sammy and Jack; I’m Gonna Get Me Some Sammy And Jack

The  best part of covering celebrity wines is that you don’t actually have to taste them to finagle columns from them thousands of words long. And do you know why?  Because, my droogies, there’s no need to taste a celebrity … Continue reading

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I Am Woman, Hear Me Pour: The International Women’s Wine Competition

People are always winging on and on and on about things they hate—Monday mornings,  the Westboro Baptist Church, Rush Limbaugh, root canals, giant spiders in the basement, the U.S. military massacring innocent Iraqi civilians… Yeah, granted, all that stuff blows … Continue reading

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The Tim Atkin Diet: A Glass Of Burgundy, A Deep Breath, And A Handful Of Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors

When I was in college, they didn’t have today’s wide array of shopliftable psychopharmaceuticals—a.k.a. memory-improving ‘smart’ drugs.  If they had, I might have remembered in which pocket I’d stashed my cheat notes. These drugs, under such brand names as Phenserine, … Continue reading

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Really, Mr. Goode? MY Faith Suggests That Blogliness Is Next To Godliness

In 1966—the same year that the first acid test was held at San Francisco’s Fillmore, the same year that a B-52 accidentally dropped three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares, Spain, and the same year that Bob Dylan … Continue reading

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Brown (Nosing)-Forman: Diversified God-Like Purveyor of Quality Consumer Products

You may already know this, but wine writing is a man’s life—right up there with firefighting, bank heisting and gay pornography acting.  No offense to my twin-X chromosomal breast-blooming, goatee-challenged life partners, but I really doubt that Alice Feiring and Jancis Robinson … Continue reading

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What The Heck Does Champagne Have To Do With Golf, Anyway?

Plenty, dahling.  Crank the Wayback Machine to 1962 when Tony Lema promised reporters at the Orange County Open that he’d force-feed them Champagne if he won—then beat Jack Nicklaus by five strokes and did, becoming known as ‘Champagne’ Tony Lema … Continue reading

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