Then came this sober French video: Inspired, challenged, bored and thirsty on a summer afternoon, I grabbed a bottle of six-year-old Italian Pinot Grigio and three-year old California Sauvignon Blanc, both with corks, and headed to the nearest sturdy tree. Neither of the corks budged. Not a millimeter. Or champagne. Nice touch. Good for him.

It’s the story of a young man who discovers a love of wine during a trip to Germany in the late sixties and who subsequently moves to a fictional California town to make great wines. “Wine Politics&# has been a great resource. It turns out that the author, Bob Krumm of Nashville, TN, is a wine geek embedded in our military.

In a few weeks, I will deliver the keynote address at the annual meeting of the California Association of Winegrape Growers. “&# Blogs and social media make a whole lot of noise but are a huge waste of your time and resources!&#. Hmm, maybe there’s a middle ground.

This past April my wife and I went to California for our anniversary and thought we would check out, among other places, the Sideways area; an area that has been around since before the movie but not on the map so much as after its release. Man have I been busy. Running a business sometimes just takes the whole day from you. Who knows?

Pinot from all over the world is discussed and reviewed, but California seems to appear more often than anything else. Not a blog, as you cannot post comments, but an amazing online resource. Here are a couple of posts from the past month or so that really stand out for me. But the Prince has no financial stake in this at all. Prince?

These folks have the resources on hand to do blind tastings in a scientific way. hope that participants will bring a variety of wines - Bordeaux of course, but also Long Island, California, who knows what else. One of my wine and food resolutions for 2007 is to do more blind tasting. didn't want to get too strict the first time.