Miscelaney

The Wine Coat

Now I ask you, how truly SWEET is this?!? This arrived in my Facebook account today from a friend with a note which simply read "new purse for Vicki". Designed to work with the bladder of boxed wine (now now, don't get all hoity-toity on me now, there are some fairly decent boxed wines out there these days), you simply take the wine bag out of the box and slide it into the Wine Coat.

12 Wines a Breathing

Ouch...it hurts to see it in print, doesn't it? TWELVE DAYS. As part of our Holiday Survival Guide, the 12 Days Before Christmas series will offer daily tips from now up until Dec. 24th to help you down the homestretch towards a great Christmas (et al) holiday. Look for wine suggestions, expanded gift ideas, beauty tips, cocktail recipes and other great stuff to help this holiday season be the most enjoyable one yet.

What’s Poppin’ For New Years

If you are a champagne whore like me (and you know you are), you are always on the lookout for a superb sparkling wine (French, if possible) which doesn't totally break the bank, tastes exceptionally yum, and makes you feel like you, too, could have tipped a glass with the best of them at one of Jay Gatsby's lavish parties or in the parlor room of the Buchanans. Heidsieck

The Purple Hand Tour–wine tasting during Crush.

Going wine tasting on a sunny, crisp fall day is near perfection, at least in my book. Thanks to crush, there is always a flurry of activity which provides joe-average-wine-drinker opportunity for an inside peek at the behind-the-scenes world of wine making. With the boom of garagiste-type wineries, many of these warehouse wineries are doing their thing right before our very eyes. We did a short purple hand tour out in Woodinville's warehouse district this past weekend and here are a few highlights:

Wine Your Way Through Lake Chelan

...it’s the perfect time to make a pilgrimage east to the latest Washington wine Mecca: the Lake Chelan Valley to do a little fall wine tasting.

(Wine)Barrel of Fun

Riddle me this. What do you get when you combine fantastic wine, delicious food, a jivin' band, a fun-spirited crowd and one of Seattle's perfect summer days? Fabwineyumfoodjivincrowdsunnyitus?

DeLille on Main

The other evening I had the very good fortune to participate in a food and wine pairing held at the ever-delicious Bis on Main in Bellevue, with the super yummy wines of DeLille Cellars. If you are curious, here's the complete pairing menu: