You might have guessed by my post about the wine pairing  app for your iPhone,  that I’m a wine fan. I’m a beginner, no real wine knowledge to speak of, but I’m learning. I joined Raley’s Wine Club a few months back and they send me information about pairings, tips for wine parties, and information on special buys and deals. If you live near a Raley’s, BelAir or Nob Hill, take a look at the company website and check out the wine club.

Some of the Raley’s stores here in California offer tastings.  My local Raley’s doesn’t offer this, but it sounds fun.  If you log into the Raley’s website, you can see a complete list of tasting locations and I think that the Natomas store would be closest to me, it’s located in Sacramento.

Here’s an example of their tasting schedule for July:

7/2 - Dancing Bull and Madria Sangria
7/9 - Smoking Loon
7/16 - Wente
7/23 - J. Lohr and Gordon Biersch
7/30 - Wine Steward’s Choice

Tastings are offered only to customers whom are 21 or older.

They run from 5:30-7:30 and they cost $3, plus tax, per sampler. You can apply the $3 to your wine purchase.

For information about a tasting near you, take a look at the Raley’s Wine Club.

Image credit: sxc.hu

Natalie MacLean, of Nat Decants, and bitHeads have worked together to develop a Drink Matcher software application for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry Bold, and the Blackberry Curve. The Drinks Matcher offers pairings for wine and cheese, wine and appetizers, wine and deserts….. basically which wine goes best with whatever you happen to be hungry for.

The Nat Decants Drinks Matcher is available for only $2.99. For Apple products, visit here. If you’ve got a Blackberry, click here.

Here are the Top 10 Cheese & Drink Matches from the Nat Decants Drinks Matcher:

1.      Camembert or brie with Champagne
2.      Gouda with Spanish Rioja
3.      Cheddar with Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignon
4.      Manchego with Amontillado Sherry
5.      Mozzarella with German Late Harvest Riesling
6.      Feta with Oregonian Pinot Noir
7.      Goat cheese with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
8.      Stilton blue cheese with Port or Sauternes
9.      Parmigiano with Italian Amarone
10.     Macaroni and cheese with Californian Chardonnay

Image credit: Sxc.hu

People say we have only two seasons here in the South – winter and summer. This year I think we found spring. This week the weather struggled to reach the mid 70s. It has rained and rained and rained until we were beaten down and miserable. Where is my unbearably hot summer? The pool was supposed to open this weekend, but no body swims when it’s 70 degrees … and raining! Not us, at least.

Everyone knows that when the weather sours here in the South, good Southern boys pour bourbon. If the boy has been influenced by his wife, he opens a bottle of wine. For this rainy Wednesday Rick chose a nice Domaine Les Aphillanthes Cotes-du-Rhone.

We turned on the patio TV to baseball and let the red wine warm our bellies. It proved a perfect match to Truman’s new fascination to Bacugons. (What amazing creatures they are!) I’ll toast to that!

My OB owned an upscale French restaurant where his family’s live-in chef made a lobster bisque so rich and lush you wanted to bathe in it. That French cuisine was paired with some lovely wines, as I recall. It was a short-lived business venture for my OB, but a pleasant one that provided my doctor and me plenty of conversation in the months leading up to the birth of my son. He knew, too, of my affection for wine and consoled me by saying it would just fine if I wanted to have 4 ounces of wine a day.

Don't wig out. It's non-fermented pinot noir (a.k.a. grape juice)

Four ounces? Is he kidding? If I had four ounces of wine, I’d want more. And more. And more. As someone who has a hard time stopping after just one glass of wine, did I really want to chance it?

I worked for the March of Dimes during the 12 months I was pregnant. I knew what alcohol consumption during pregnancy could do. I heard the sad stories of children born with fetal alcohol syndrome. And then there is the possibility of increased cognitive or behavior problems spurred by the mother’s alcohol use. What my doctor and other perinatal experts told me at the time is that a little wine or beer on occasion was fine, but some women might take that information as license to down bottles of booze and put their unborn child at risk. So it was just easier to say, ‘Don’t do it.’”

Years ago it was not big deal to have a sip of wine or beer while pregnant. It some cases, I’ve heard that doctors even recommended it to women who were a bit high strung. (That would be me.) But the times, they are a-changing. In countries like England where drinking during pregnancy is largely accepted, some groups are pushing to adopt America’s standard of slapping labels on bottles of alcohol warning of possible alcohol-related birth defects. And some pubs are refusing service to pregnant women who order alcohol.

It’s easy to find arguments on both sides of the issue. As for me, my body seemed to make its own choice. I tried sipping champagne or wine on a handful of occasions, but my paranoia was overwhelming. And so, for that year I was pregnant, I refrained.

But rest assured, the minute my baby was born and the drugs wore off, I celebrated with a toast!

Sources:
The Telegraph
Daily Mail

photo, Flickr, Brett L.

We’re celebrating this week for many reasons –my husband’s good health, our wedding anniversary, plus, Truman’s T-ball team is 2-0. And there’s something about the early days of spring that just screams “party!”

So we broke out Perrier Jouet Grand Brut. The experts say this Champagne is “poised and stylish” and “layers sharp citrus fruit with spicy wood and light toast.” All I know is when I’m walking around with a glass of this, I’m loving life. At about $30 per bottle, this jewel is great for sitting curbside with neighbors and watching 5-year-olds race Big Wheels in the driveway.

“I only drink Champagne when I’m happy, and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I’m thirsty.”
- Lily Bollinger

Photo, JWJourney

The other day my son whined all day long! It was not unlike Coco Conundrum when she was in heat. (By the way, if you take your cat to the vet to get fixed while she is in heat, it will cost you $10 more because they have to cut a larger incision since her uterus swells to four times normal size! Gah!)

My friend Suzanne likes to tell her kids, “I don’t understand Whinese,” but that trick wasn’t working here. It was time to bring out the reinforcements. I call it fighting fire with fire – or fighting whining by wining.

The Wine-y Wednesday pick-o-the-day is Dona Paula Los Cardos sauvignon blanc. It’s a light, crisp Argentinean with just a little kick of grapefruit to compliment this warmer weather. Perfect for helping you tune out a child who is lying on the floor complaining about godknowswhat. Ringing in at under $15 a bottle, you really can drink it like water.

“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
- Ben Franklin

(photo, JWJourney)

Nat Decants, online home of Natalie MacLean, expert sommelier, now offers a widget that will help you to chose the very best wine or beverage to compliment your meal.

For example, I chose…

“Mushrooms: Chanterelle” and the Wine & Food Matcher widget gave me, “Other drinks: Tea:Assam, Vodka” and “Red Wine: Barbera, Pinot Noir Old World/Burgundy, Shiraz” and “White Wine: Chardonnay: New World (Full-Bodied, Fruity).

Then, I’m given more options - I can click to find a list of wines available to match the dish or find more recipes with complimentary ingredients.

If you really like the Matcher Widget and you want to have easier access to it or you want to share it with your friends, you can post your own copy of it on your desktop, your web site, or your favorite social networking site, like MySpace or Facebook.

I think that this is a great idea, although I’m more of a beer girl, than a wine girl. I wonder which beer goes best with Chanterelles?

Image credit: All Posters.com

According to a study by Cancer Research UK, drinking two large glasses of wine a day increases the risk of getting bowel cancer by a quarter while even one large glass can increase the risk by 10 percent.

The warnings will come as a huge worry to millions of middle class Britons who enjoy a glass or two of wine each night believing that they are not harming their health.

Many even think they are doing themselves good after doctors extolled the benefits of a glass of red wine at night, claiming that it could protect them against heart disease.

But the research has shown that even drinking within the Government’s health guidelines of two units a day for women - one large glass of wine, or a pint of normal strength beer - or three units for men could prove to be dangerous.

Bowel (or colon or colorectal) cancer is the third most common cancer (after lung and breast cancers).

Gee, then drinking or not drinking wine daily will just be a choice of the lesser evil between heart disease and colon cancer.

This finding must really hurt all the wine-lovers out there. What should we do then? Take a sip of two after each dinner, or only have wine on weekends or say Friday nights only?

Read the full report.