another wine blog

That was my initial reaction to the news that Bennigan’s was closing 300 of its eponymous dumps along with some Steak and Ales, as well. If I could close all of the mediocre crap chain restaurants in this country, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Then I started to think about all of the poor [...]

Between the heat and trying to eat in healthier ways, I have been making and eating a lot of salads. Mostly created with spinach and/or arugula. Today a co-worker and I were talking about salads and I mentioned that I make my own dressings to keep calories down while accentuating flavor and healthiness.
There are [...]

The Washington Post has a good article discussing the burgeoning wine industry in Washington state. I am a big fan of the wines of the Pacific Northwest. They are great values and increasingly good wines.
Is the weather in Washington that accommodating? Pretty much. Many tend to think of it as we experienced it on [...]

I really like this wine. It is a very deep, dark, inky red color. The nose is huge, as are the flavors. This is what I think of as an example of what a good Australian Shiraz should be.
The color deep and dark in the glass, right to the edges. The deep ruby color is [...]

Last night my wife and I decided to go out and have a light dinner and then try out a wine bar that we thought was new. Due to a miscommunication we ended up at a place called Sushi Coast for the light dinner. This place was disgusting, and if I don’t end up with [...]

I would like to apologize to any of my readers who have visited in the hopes of reading my latest babble, only to find out that there was none. Hurricane Dolly sent a little bit of the outer edges of her fury up to the Houston area the other night and I have been without [...]

Over at Vinography, there is a fantastic discussion about the places of objectivity and subjectivity in wine critiques. There are a lot of great points made in both the article and the comments. Writing like this combined with the great reader comments is what makes Vinography one of the best wine blogs around.
The appreciation of [...]

There are few things more classic than a breakfast of ham and eggs, but sometimes even a classic needs a makeover to keep it from getting in a rut. Here is a different take on classic ham and eggs that will very easily make you look like a culinary wizard to your family and friends.
This [...]

I am a big fan of Pinot Grigio. It is grown in so many different regions of the world, and produces different styles of wines in each. Yet it retains its identity everywhere.
Pinot Grigio is what the Pinot Gris grape is called in Italy.  The name likely originates from the vaguely pine cone or “pinot” [...]

Drinkplanner weighs in on the Budweiser vs. the big, bad foreign company kerfuffle. As usual, they do it in a most amusing and insightful way. Here are some choice excerpts.
And to those panicking about lost American jobs and whatnot…calm the hell down.  Anheuser-Busch is THE #1 producer of beer in the states, and they’re not [...]

The idiots who drink that watered down swill with the detergent finish seem to be losing their minds over the deal. It boggles my mind that people could be so passionate about something so awful, as this CNN article describes.
Philip McClary was grilling out at his home in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday night [...]

MSNBC News does a feature on the recent study that showed that music can influence how we taste wine.

Some people, they like to go out dancing
And other people like us, they have to work
And there’s even some evil mothers
Well they’re gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
You know that women never really faint,
And that villains always blink their eyes
And that  children are the only ones who blush
And  life is just to die
- [...]

Our friends at Drinkplanner.com have come up with a very cool new t-shirt that they are selling at their site. Here is a peek at them. They have both men’s and women’s sizes.

The New York Times wine columnist rightfully and righteously takes down the mass-producing wing of the American beer industry.
This paragraph drew my first of many “amens.”
Yet, the big beer companies apparently find it repulsive that people could conceive of beer as an adult beverage full of wonder and complexities. So they do their best to [...]

Gordon Ramsey tries to fool Jamie Oliver’s sommelier and somehow manages not to swear even once. Amazing!

The trouble with a lot of salads, as far as I am concerned, is that they provide less nutrition than many people think and a lot of the time, more calories. This salad has neither problem, and it is very simple to make. It is also quite versatile and can be tailored to your personal [...]

I don’t have much to post about today, so I am basically taking the day off to go to Willie Nelson’s Family Picnic. There probably won’t be much wine, but it is rumored that they may have some beer.
I hope all of you had a great 4th of July, and enjoy the rest of the [...]

An interesting study from Cornell University shows that the three primary Bordeaux wine rating services are consistent in their rankings. The findings claim that the three most popular ranking sources, Robert Parker, Stephen Tanzer, and Wine Spectator, display a high degree of internal consistency in their rankings. They also show that there is a great [...]

New Belgium’s Web site has some babble about this beer springing forth from dreams about acupuncturists and barrels, or some such nonsense. What a shame that is, as this is a exceptionally tasty hot weather beer, and that is a really stupid way to describe it unless their target is new age acupuncturist beer snobs.
Springboard [...]