Your free online wine course, with over 1.1 million lessons downloaded

It’s not long until the auction ends, folks.

Right now, there is only one raffle ticket with the WFN wine seminar prize attached. If you participate and buy one ticket, your chances of winning would be 50-50. Buy two tickets and increase your odds to 66-34!

This is a chance to win a prize valued at $250 for a mere ten bucks. Go check out the details and get your bids in before it’s too late!

NB: Yes, I’m aware that the blog looks a bit funky with odd white space showing up. I think it’s a conflict between my Thesis theme and Wordpress 2.7, although it also looks like it could be a Firefox issue. Hopefully it will get sorted out quickly.

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I love it when my vocation and hobby cross paths. I must admit I’m surprised that Indiana was not singled out for any insane wine laws. Indiana did, of course, show up along with a few other states for our yearly “thou shalt not buy alcohol on election day” event.

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From Vinography comes this amazing photo. I’m not sure what to make of it, but my Twitter followers know that I can only say WTF?

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As a prize donor, it’s always interesting to see if anyone bids on the prize I offer. We’ve got our first bid on the free online wine seminar, but there’s plenty of time to get in on the action. Remember, too–these prizes that have only a few bids give you better odds of winning.

So, look over my prize offering and the prizes of others, and join in the fun. Even though you may not win, it’s still a great cause and really makes a difference–every dollar we raise goes to the program. No administrative fees, no other fees, nothing. Even the First Giving web site waives its fee, I believe.

Don’t wait, act now. The children of Lesotho will appreciate it, and so will I.

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When the U.S. economy is in a serious downturn, it is easy for us to forget that we are still very blessed. Most of us have roofs over our head, food on the table, and clothing on our backs. While many of our fellow citizens may be struggling, there are people in this world who do more than struggle, even when the world economy is booming. There are people who live in what U2 frontman Bono calls “ridiculous poverty,” subsisting on a dollar a day or less.

Last year I was privileged to take part in the online charitable event known as Menu For Hope. Working with other wine and food bloggers, we raised about $91,000 to assist the United Nations World Food Programme. Our $91,000 went directly to a program for school children in the small African country of Lesotho. For a child living in poverty, getting an education is difficult. It’s even harder when the child has an empty stomach.

This year, Menu For Hope V will again raise money for the program in Lesotho. I’m very proud to be a participant, and I hope you will do all that you can by bidding on one or more of the amazing prizes being offered.

What I have to offer this year is a wine seminar. Yes, you get me to put together a 90-minute (or so) wine seminar on the topic(s) of your choice. We agree upon a date and time, and I come to you live via streaming video over the Internet. You’ll be able to ask questions via a chat feature, and we can even record it and let you watch it over and over again. You can invite as many friends as you want to your place, or they can watch from the comfort of their own homes. The sky is the limit!

Sound interesting? If so, here’s what you need to do.

You can see the master list of prizes and descriptions at Chez Pim. Each prize has a code, such as WB20 (which is the code for my prize).

Find the prize(s) you want to bid on and then go to the donation site: http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope5. There, you will donate $10 for one raffle ticket.

Here’s the important part, so pay attention!

In the “Personal Message” section, you need to specify which prize(s) you are bidding on. You need to write in how many tickets you’re bidding for that prize, and give the prize code. You can bid on more than one prize and divide up your tickets as you wish. For example, you could donate $50 and split it among three prizes: 2xEU01, 1xEU02, 2xWB20.

You need to put that “tickets times prize code” in the message section or we’ll have no idea what you were bidding on.

Also, be sure to make certain that First Giving can “see your email address” so we know how to contact you if you win. The email address will not be shared with anyone.

Thank you for your generosity. Together, we can help feed children, provide the education they need to become self-sustaining, and rest well at night knowing we have helped improve a small corner of the world.

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Last year I was pleased to be a prize donor in the fourth annual Menu For Hope. A huge number of wine and food bloggers raised over $91,000 to help feed school children in the small African nation of Lesotho. This year I will again donate a prize:

The winner of the prize will receive a 90-minute online wine seminar, live via streaming video. Since we’ll be going out on the Internet, the winner can be anywhere in the world; unfortunately, I don’t think I can stream video to the International Space Station (although that would be quite cool). The winner and I will coordinate as to date, time, and topic(s), and the winner can invite over as many friends as he or she wants to watch and participate–either on location or via their own video stream.

Here’s how this works. People who want to try to wine the prize will purchase a $10 “raffle ticket.” You’ll enter a specific code for this particular prize. You can buy as many tickets as you want, which obviously increases your chances of winning.

I will post more details when the event opens up on Monday the 15th. In the meantime, definitely check out the main post at Chez Pim along with Vinography’s announcement.

I know that this year money is very tight for everyone, but I hope you can all find room in your budgets for a $10 entry. The cause is a damn good one and well worth your participation.

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With the economy in a seeming free-fall, it’s a damn good time to be looking at cheap wines. It’s pretty well accepted that Chile produces some great bargains. The Chilean quality per price ratio has to be one of the best. Fortunately, we get to find out about all sorts of inexpensive Chilean reds with this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday hosted by Quaffmaster General Tim of Cheap Wine Ratings. Tim even posed a bit of a challenge:

The rules are any red wine from Chile for $20 or less.  If you can find a really good one for closer to $10, better yet.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve met that challenge without any doubt.

The wine I enjoyed for this WBW event is the Rayun Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, which set me back $10 per bottle. This is an amazingly good wine, regardless of the price. It has a beautiful dark garnet color, and the nose is very aromatic with good doses of leather and, perhaps, tobacco. There’s a lot going on in this bouquet, and I wish my olafactory senses were better able to pull out the different layers of scents.

On the palate, the wine has a great balance of fruit-forward and depth. The tannins are just perfect, and it has a nice long finish. If I have to give a score, it’s doggone close to a 90.

Frankly, I think it’s nuts that this wine has a $10 price tag, but I’m not going to tell the winery that. I’m just glad I bought several bottles!

Many thanks to QM Tim for hosting this month’s event. I’m really looking forward to seeing what people come up with for their selections.

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Dom Perignon, the abbot of a monastery at Hautvillers, France, is often credited with inventing Champagne. It’s a nice accolade, but unfortunately Dom Perignon is not the responsible party. In fact, Dom Perignon tried like mad to keep the wines from going fizzy since the fizzy wines had the tendency to make bottles explode.

The winemakers in the Champagne region were mortified that their wines developed this fizzy quality (caused by a stopped-and-restarted fermentation in the cold climate). When they figured there was no way to avoid the problem, they turned it into a marketing blitz and made Champagne into something special.

We’ll probably never know who actually decided that a sparkling wine would be sold as something special. But we do have a lot that we owe to Dom Perignon. His legacy is rightly deserved: he is responsible for creating the blending methods using older vintages that every Champagne house uses today. This blending technique is what allows the bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin that you enjoy today to taste the same as the one you had two years ago–even though the characteristics of each year’s wine change.

Dom Perignon may never have said that he was “drinking stars” (as one ad campaign put it), but we should be grateful that he spent his time working to make great wines rather than, say, writing music.

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Want to really learn about wine? As I hinted recently, I’m working on a new project that it’s time to announce. The working (and probably final) title is The Wine For Newbies Wine Tasting Course. It will be an ebook, downloadable and viewable with any PDF reader.

Another “learn about wine” book? Yes–but with a difference.

Almost all of the wine books out there spend a ton of time teaching you about wine: the grapes, the regions, the labels, and so on. But almost none of them do the one thing that you really need to do: get some wine, drink it, and figure out what you like about it! The books are almost always “talking the talk,” but they don’t get you to “walk the walk.” Back in the 1970s or 1980s, a guy by the name of James Fixx wrote a book called Running. It was all about running–why you should do it, what types of shoes you should have, and so on. It was a brilliant book, and it inspired me to take up running–something I did for several years (until fear of knee replacement surgery in my future struck). One of the things Fixx’s book did well was it got you out there and actually running. There was a step-by-step (no pun intended) explanation of how to build up your stamina and get the most out of the workouts. Little wonder that Running was a smash hit. It did something other books weren’t doing. And that’s what I want to accomplish with my book.

Don’t get me wrong–I love Kevin Zraly’s Windows on the World Complete Wine Course. I still refer to it at least once a month. Same goes for Karen MacNeil’s Wine Bible, and all of the various books I have on my shelves. They are all full of excellent information, but none of them really walk you through getting and tasting the wines. It’s almost like Running without the how-to part. I can read all about exercise that I want, but it won’t do me a bit of good if I don’t get out and exercise. The same principle applies with wine. You can read all the wine books you want, but if you don’t pull the cork or take off the screw cap and actually drink the wine, the books won’t do you much good.

So here’s what you need to know: I’m working on the book. Drafting, editing, refining, and so on. It’s going to be ready fairly soon (but not soon enough). I don’t know when it will actually be ready for release, but it won’t be too terribly long. I’ve got a lot of loyal readers (and podcast listeners), and I want to recognize that loyalty. So what I’m going to do is give them a price break. I also want to give those readers and listeners the chance to get their hands (or computer mice?) on the ebook before anyone else.

If that sounds good to you, this is what you need to do. If you’re already on that FeedBlitz mailing for this site, you don’t need to do anything. If you’re not already on the mailing list, you need to plug your email address in and subscribe. Don’t worry–the only emails you will ever get (except for the “please confirm” email) will come from me. No one else.

If you’re subscribing via the RSS feed, you’ll need to subscribe to the email list. The RSS subscribers won’t get the same price break or advance access–it’s not that I don’t appreciate you all, but I can’t get info to you folks exclusively as easily as I can via email.

I have to say, I’m really psyched about this. Almost enough to skip work for a few days and finish up the book. Unfortunately, there would be hell to pay if I did that. Still, I’m going to plow into finishing it up this weekend and see how much progress I make.

Stay tuned!

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