With the holidays just around the corner, literally, are you ready with dinner party wines? Do you still need a unique gift for that wine lover, and want something with some character? Do you struggle with the imminent small talk that accompanies holiday gatherings? To help, here are some wines to consider, and a little conversation to go with them. There are wines that not only inspire sonnets on what is going on in the glass, and then there are those that encourage more in-depth conversations on the history and the story of the how, and who, of that wine.
Last year, the 700 block of Caroline decided to collaborate with each other during the Christmas holiday season. As a way of promoting each other, Chris Allen, of Duly Noted, suggested a cookie crawl where customers would purchase a tin and then collect their cookies along the path of participating businesses. Having sold out of tickets, Chris decided to take this idea to a much bigger platform. Chris is also the Executive Director of Mainstreet, which is a national nonprofit organization that focuses on the economic improvements of historical downtowns.
How many things have passed by, and then became new again by some re-inventor that thought “Hey, this was so cool we need to show the world this thing again.”? This happens over and over again, like the swinging of a pendulum. Think about music styles, “retro” fads, and clothing styles. Did any of you ladies ever think that banana purses would come back in style? They look funky cool but really, how do you organize a banana purse? It was extremely frustrating, but you just had to have one.
In the last couple decades, the US market has grabbed ahold of Spanish wines. Starting with the most-grown grapes, which include Tempranillo, Grenache, Verdejo, and Albariño. You would think that these grapes came into existence in the normal way of propagating two different varietals by crossing to produce a new grape. This is no different than when Sauvignon Blanc was crossed with Cabernet Franc to produce Cabernet Sauvignon.
“Pavlov’s Dog” started as an experiment by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who meant to discover how a condition response (a bell ringing) is the result of an unconditioned stimulus (food). The tool? The poor dog that hears the bell and immediately salivates whether or not he is presented with food. He went on to prove that these responses also occur in humans.
