In Vino Veritas

  Memory is a tricky (insert favorite expletive here). When I was a kid I used to crawl through secret passages in our house. There was a fire place in the backroom that I was able to get behind and I’d climb to the second floor. There’s only one problem with that memory. There was no backroom fireplace, nor were there any secret passages. I’m gonna put the way-back machine to really…

  Ahsan Ali you might remember was a geneticist friend of mine. He’s the guy that cloned the wooly mammoth. Well I just found out he was eaten by crocodiles in Southern Florida. Or at least that’s what I was told.. This is exactly how I heard the story.. After the Wooly Mammoth fiasco Ahsan was hired by some rogue communist party that specialized in the breeding of small animals of every variety. However,…

A couple of friends of mine had a bit of a dispute. One of these friends is a staunch loyalist from Essex, England, and the other a native to the Loire valley in France. The question was this.. Who created sparkling wine first? The Brits or the French? So? Which came first? The chicken or the egg?   In order to paint the picture and put a rest to this debate I…

In the dark I ventured. I had awoken in a land more corporeal than where I’d fallen asleep. This place had an eerie glow about it. There were spirits everywhere and with these spirits came a price, albeit a reasonable one. It just so happened to be a carnival of spirits and libations. “Come thirsty, leave happy” was the motto of the San Francisco Craft Spirits Carnival, and a…

    This story contains, but is not limited to the following: a severed head, someone with amnesia, a micro-biologist discovering a way to clone frozen DNA, a clown with an identity crisis and a radiation leak at a military grade nuclear reactor.     I have been following the progress of various scientists for quite some time now. One reason for my interest is the desire to have wooly mammoths once again roam…

  Rudolf Steiner was a very interesting fellow. He had a knack for many things, and an intelligence that left many in awe. He also left behind a legacy. Biodynamic farming (although it wasn’t called that in 1924 when introduced) in the wine world has achieved more momentum then a falling potato. Considered to be an upgrade from organic farming. Vineyards everywhere have found that in the long run a safer (chemical…

  I’ve seen Carlos Santana in concert many times. He has a way of communing with the cosmos when he is up on stage. There was an article in Guitar Player magazine that I took an excerpt from: “Fear only has one agenda—to negate your beauty and your truth. Ego only has one agenda—to create death, destruction, and failure. That’s the only function of the ego. We should compliment it, because…

A few years ago I went to a restaurant called Dans le Noir?. This was a unique experience for so many reasons. The restaurant was in Paris on a little alley called Quincampoix not 50 yards from the Musée National d’Art Moderne. The premise was that the entire…

  There I was. In the dark. In my bed. I awoke with a shudder. There is something in the room with me. Fear grips me. I can sense it close. I can even hear its heart beat. Thump thump thump. I dare not move. Straining my eyes as if I will suddenly be able to see with but a hint of light. Thump thump thump. How close must it be that I can hear its heart…

I find it odd that entirely by coincidence I am posting a blog about aging wine on my birthday... Every year for many years I journeyed to a far away land called Santa Barbara County and in this land was a little village called Solvang (a small Dutch community.) Staying with friends at one of the cottages in the Chimney Sweep Inn, I would walk down the quaint cobbled street…