Gizmodo is talking about us!

Well they referred to "drunken friends" in their post about the Vinturi Wine Aerator (do you think they are Italian?). I'll let them tell the story and you can jump to the product page from there - after being entertained by the comments, of course... (What a great picture!)

Liberty School - Paso Robles - 2004 - Cab Sav

OK, so $15.99 is NOT under $10. Matter of fact, it is an important difference. There is a lot of math we could do but it comes down to the fact that if you buy wine to have around to drink with dinner and to share with others, you can't be buying too much of $15.99 (and higher) wines unless you are independently wealthy or have no friends. It's like the rent story, you shouldn't spend more than 1/3rd your monthly salary on your rent. You want your wine expenses to be negligible and not really "showing up" on the monthly bill chart (because then they send you to AA). An occasional bottle is what we're talking about. That occasional good bottle you can enjoy alone or show off at a gathering. That bottle is definitely Liberty School. Liberty School has quite the little story. It used to be a bit of a secret and then it got popular and then it got bad. Now it's back and good again. Don't worry we'll talk more about it, but first look for the label and try some.

Bootleg Chianti

To tell you a little story I went into a Wine & Spirits store recently and was looking, as always, for something new to try. I found this interesting bottle, pictured right, and brought it up to the register. Now I'm not someone who buys because the label is cute, as per my RED post before, but besides the zipper running down the label, it was, in fact a Tuscan Chianti and well hey, it was about $10. $10 Chiantis can be very hit or miss but rarely tossed out completely. So I bring it to the counter and the pretentious long-haired hippie wine guy (I can say that) smirks and says "that? that is horrible. That is a horrible, horrible wine. You DO NOT want to buy that." Having certain hot blood myself and probably capable of saying the same words to a stranger, I slowly looked him in the eye, thought for a second and bought it anyway. Turns out that it's not a horrible, horrible wine, actually it went pretty good with my usual bread, cheese, tomato, garlic type thing.

The point? Don't listen to me or anyone else. Ever. Ultimately you know what you like best.

Oh and here is Bootleg Chianti on Wine.com...

Eating in Restaurants

Normally I'm focused on which bottle of wine I will have with my dinner in my house. I enjoy my house and the food I can have here is often better than what I get eating out and often a lot less expensive. And blah, blah, it's always prepared to my taste, etc. etc. But should you want to go out to eat you may want to check out this Gawker article first. Because as much as we think things are obvious and common sense and blah blah blah. There aren't.