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A True Friend

Thursday, January 29, 2009

A giant in the wine business, a friend and a legend left us on Monday.  Donn Reisen, the President of Ridge Vineyards, is gone. 

Donn was synonymous with Zinfandel, and he was a pioneer in promoting the grape and all it's American glory.  Donn had been with Ridge since 1977, working his way from a tractor all the way to the top.  Moving from fields to sales meetings, no matter whom he was talking to, everyone came away with an understanding of what wine passion truly meant.  Donn was a great motivator and a great spokesman, who demonstrated an amazing sense of humor and a great zest for storytelling.  There can be few who met him who would ever forget him; I know that I certainly will not.  Donn was one of the first wine people who stepped forth to be an interview on the Crush.  It did not matter that we had 4 stations, he wanted to lend a hand and spread the gospel.  He was my twelfth show, and he led me through the interview, carrying my weight, and I will never be able to thank him enough for that..  He has left his mark on all of us in the business that were fortunate enough to meet him.  No matter what comes, I hope that he is remembered for his larger than life persona, and for the many people he touched along his journey.  Happy Harvest Donn.

10.   What game?  I thought it was just commercials.

9.      To see your neighbors that you only see once a year...and during the game you remember why you only wave to them during the rest of the year.

8.      Because where else can you eat chili, nachos, wings, and 7 layer dip and say "It's tradition."

7.      What other event has defined something  as big as "wardrobe malfunction?"

6.      To see what rock 'n rollers are still alive.

5.       To fully understand the new catch phrases your "hip" friends will be using for the next 6 months.."Dude, Sweet, WHAAAAAT's Up....."  Need I say any more after these 3?

4.        Because as of Monday, you know that all your favorite tv shows will no longer be reruns.

3.       Although you know there is no SEC football until August, you can keep up with all the players who used to be there.

2.       93.2 million people can't be wrong

1.       Because Wine Crush, your favorite wine show, won't be on for another week- so what else do you have to do?

Enjoy the game! ...Talk to you next week.

Week two of my grand resolutions continues and I have decided that all of this is much easier drinking a few glasses of chardonnay...House  is clean, soup is cooking, and after attempting to revisit

my devotion of yoga, only my fingers have escaped being too sore to move.  Going back to the chardonnay- has anyone else noticed the recent pricing slide?  I have to admit, I have always been a little spoiled in having wine around the house with this gig, but lately, even at my local megamarts, GOOD wine is inching down.  Two large past vintages, new vintage coming out and the economy surfing the porcelain bowl, I can't imagine why wineries would want to "discount" some of their current releases.

Even the wineries are feeling the pinch as their new vintage whites start to come on line and they still have pallets of 2006 and 2007 crowding their warehouses.  As much as I feel their pain, good for us. This will be a great next 90 days for those of us looking for values in white wine as wineries ditch some of their surplus.  So, raise a glass to the fact that whereas most everything is going up, premium tier wines are going down and helping to lubricate all the tedious chores that lay ahead of us in these post New Year months

Welcome to the New Year!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Happy New Year, and welcome to the first entry of my "New Years Resolution." My goal, no matter how short, is to update this blog every week.  (In addition to MY resolution, my producer has resolved to nag me to death if I don't - double motivation.) 

See, for those of you who listen on a more regular basis, (and those who don't- join us each week!) you understand that I am of the generation where a conversation is a face to face event, ergo, a blog is going to take me a bit of getting used to.  (Even now, the happy paper clip on my word program is telling me that "blog" is not a word).  To make this amusing though, I am going to need your help.

Let me know what is on your mind, what you want to talk about or how exactly you want me to mock you..that last part will really save both of us a lot of time.  Blog, call, email, lets get to the heart of the matter and hear what you are interested in.  So see, this is going to work really well...I get nagged, you get nagged and everyone is happier in the end. 

This week, I am recovering from the holidays, cleaning out my house, and working on the upcoming Inauguration show.  Although we have a fun show planned, there is still one daunting question that I want answered...What wine is being served at the inauguration?  I would imagine that we could predict a lot about the upcoming Presidency if we just knew what he was drinking.  Is it going to be high end, expensive cult wines and in that case are they donated (just like the rest of his party)? 

Or is it nice and inexpensive,like what the rest of us are having to drink right now....enquiring minds want to know.  I hope, at least, it is a US made wine (although I hear he is bolting for Canada shortly).  Let's take an informal poll....let me know what you think is being  erved and what the ramifications are.  I look forward to hearing from all of you, and this is me, signing off on day one o my resolution.  God help us all. 

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