An update on the ASUS Transformer in action

I’ve had the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer for a little longer now, and it was time for an update on what I’ve been enjoying as I have had lots of conversations in the wine business with people who have been interested in its potential. I also see that Simon Woods is doing the same. Overall, [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/qj6kGvFFGBs/

Leighton Meester Leila Arcieri Lena Headey Leonor Varela

A toast to wine freedom

In this 50th anniversary year of Amnesty International*, I propose a letter-writing campaign that might liberate wine stories from their digital prisons. ?Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done.? Peter Benenson Please feel free to employ this whenever you come across [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/MtLYXpJE_Jk/

LeAnn Rimes Leeann Tweeden Leelee Sobieski Leighton Meester

First Impressions of Virginia Wine ? Wine Bloggers Conference

It was also fun to hear several references to the Napa Valley. Once again as in Washington bloggers conference a year ago everyone is shooting to topple the king. I don?t see any Virginia wines available where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of it is consumed in Virginia and much makes its way to Canada and the U.K. Ther is much more to learn about Virginia wines as the wine bloggers conference rolls along. Continue reading

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/first-impressions-of-virginia-wine-wine-bloggers-conference/

Mila Kunis Milla Jovovich Minka Kelly Minki van der Westhuizen

Would you like a Gold or Silver with that Red or White?

Guest blogger and wine judge  Stacie Hunt offers some insight into being a judge at the Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition. Stacie is a commentator on wine for National Public Radio, a Certified Sommelier (AIS), an international wine judge, educator, journalist and blogger. Everyone has his or her own idea of spring.  In the city, the [...]

Source: http://blogs.fairplex.com/blog/wine/?p=51

Kelly Carlson Kelly Clarkson Kelly Hu Kelly Monaco

Deal Alert: $35 for $70 from Wine.com

Quick one for you today:
Eversave is offering $70 worth of wine from Wine.com for $35 

Note that as with previous offers they've run, the voucher cannot be applied towards shipping nor tax. On the positive side of things, wine.com can ship to Massachusetts -and- we don't have tax on alcohol here.

To amortize the cost of shipping across more purchases I bought their Steward Ship program last year. It's kind of like Amazon Prime where you pay once for all your shipping for the year. They ran a special on it for $25 last year and the shipping can be extended to gifts as well.

Hit the comments below to share some tips on the best deals they have right now. I went for 2 bottles of the 2008 Belle Glos Las Alturas Pinot Noir for $34.99/btl. More on that wine in this California v. Oregon Pinot Noir showdown.

Offer ends Friday June 17th, 2011.


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/Ci7_ObYAa0Q/deal-alert-35-for-70-from-winecom.html

Olivia Wilde Padma Lakshmi Paige Butcher Pamela Anderson

The Best Door Stop you can buy

It weighs in well over five lbs. measures nearly a foot in length and contains over 2500 pages. 

Bed time reading?  Only if you have the energy to wrestle the massive tome into bed.

While it’s odd to consider such a book in an age where reading the newspaper is quaint, magazines are building their proverbial bridge to cross the digital divide and e-book sales are skyrocketing at the expense of their paper-based brethren, I’m here to encourage you to not only buy a relic of the 20th century, but to buy a used 1980s version before it’s too late; they won’t be available forever.

The Bern’s Steakhouse wine list is the stuff of legend and a worthy addition the wine enthusiasts’ book collection.

Bern’s boasts the largest wine list of any restaurant in the world and not so coincidentally they have the largest private wine cellar in the U.S.  A winner of Wine Spectator’s Grand Award every year since the award’s inception in 1981, they have earned their wine bona fides. 

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The wine list itself has grown in legend comparable to the cellar. 

The story goes that as Bern Laxer’s wine cellar and wine list at his eponymous restaurant gained notoriety, the lists intended for patron perusal would frequently go missing by diners who wanted a souvenir of their meal (albeit a very large and unwieldy souvenir).  Out the door these wine lists went covered by a dinner jacket or (in)discreetly tucked into a purse or satchel. 

To combat the nicking, Proprietor Bern Laxer started publishing the wine list in book form and selling them complete with plenty of personally written wine region overviews, photos from travels and hand drawn maps. 

Discontinued in its gargantuan form with the 1994 edition when the updating process became too cumbersome in an already cumbersome process, the handsome, large format leather-look books are entirely charming, comprehensive, personal in authorial style and, dare I say, a must have.

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But, to repeat, you need to buy a used, vintage copy.

I only recently purchased my copy from Amazon.com.  The 1984 edition came to me in nearly perfect shape for the absurdly reasonable price of $23 plus $4 in shipping and handling.  The foldout maps are clever, the prose is folksy and to the point and the unpretentious historical perspective on the regions of the wine world and the great vintages dating to the mid-to-late 1800s is nearly impossible to find in other books.

It’s a tough sell these days to advocate buying a wine reference book.  Who has the time to read a doorstop?  These books are better used for occasional review and even then it’s better to know where to find the information then to have the book, or so goes conventional wisdom.  Where do you even put it?  It’s something else to collect dust…

Perhaps that perspective is valid, but there’s a lot to be said for looking at wine books, particularly vintage wine books, as equivalent to snatching up classic greatest hits of musicians in LP form – the recording as the artists intended it, a snapshot of a time and place that is entirely authentic.

You may want to buy a dictionary stand for it (another quaint relic of a bygone time) in order to have it at-hand and handsomely displayed near your wine, and you’ll have to sleuth out used versions on Amazon.com, eBay or your local used bookstore, but I can confirm definitively that having a copy of Bern’s Steakhouse Wine List from the 80s or 90s won’t be the most important wine book you own, but it will become your most treasured.

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/the_best_door_stop_you_can_buy/

Monica Potter Monika Kramlik Moon Bloodgood Mýa