Be Afraid, Be Very, Very Afraid!

Trick or Treat Antoinette,

Time to be afraid America! I'm not talking about the presidential race, though what could be scarier than dressing up as one of two hyperbolic, cackling grandparents in a suit...yikes! Nor am I referring to Cubs fans hiding under their covers with nightmares of a goat, and Indian fans fearing they will wake up in Cleveland. No, I'm talking about All Hallows Eve! That special night in the year when we remember the dead, watch slasher movies, and send little children out to strangers houses dressed in costumes to beg for treats. It's also time for the adults to stash the expensive candy too good for little Johnny down the street, and to liberate your favorite candy from the bags of the children lucky enough to make it home safe! (It's for their own good...dental hygiene and all)...and then the good part, what wine to pair with your favorite sweet treat. Whether you prefer Amarone with your Tootsie Rolls, a Milky Way with your Cabernet, Sweet Tarts with a Riesling, Starburst with a Moscato D'Asti or Pixie Stix and Sauvignon Blanc, just make sure to have plenty on hand to deafen you to the noise of screaming kids, scary noises, or crying Cubs or Indian fans. Remember, the more you have the better the "tricks" and the "treats" become! And word to the wise if you plan on attending a costume party...take care dressing as a Cub or an Indian for Halloween, you don't want to be accused of cultural appropriation by Winnie the Pooh and Geronimo (or Gandhi for that matter)! I'll see you on the dark side!

Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahaha!

Boo!

Play Ball

Batter up Antoinette,

It's October...the time when America's 2 favorite pastimes come to fruition and our manifest destiny was largely fulfilled. Time to harvest the grapes and watch the boys of October play for a title. So pick your grape, root for your team and celebrate 'merica and the events in this week in history that made it all possible. First our victory at Yorktown and the eviction of the Brits and their alcohol tax,* then the Louisiana purchase which lead TJ to celebrate his two terms by spending the equivalent of over $200,000 on wine. For dessert we went ahead and threw in Alaska, otherwise known as Seward's Folly. Named such when Sec. of State Seward didn't realize that too much ice wine leads to a lot of Eskimo kisses, heating up the igloo so much that even an Inuit's ardor was "dampened". And just to make it competitive, Mason and Dixon drew a line between north and south to see who could grow the best wine (they may have used that line for other competitions but I can't remember). And finally, every good coach knows it's important to hold a lead once you get it, so Kennedy told Castro and Kruschev to stick those missiles up their silos, because they aren't getting our wine and we'll embargo them until they learn how to play nice*. What greater bulwark against communism than baseball and wine....just look at the number of Cuban defectors who risked the Bermuda triangle to come here and enjoy our low hanging fruit. Now wine and baseball are in every state...coincidence? I think not...can't celebrate victory without a bubbly bath! Time to cheer America's bounty...Baseball, Vino and even Reggie Jackson who hit 3 homeruns on 3 swings and earned the title Mr October (he was kind of like the Yankees, Tom Brady or plum wine, you either hate him or love him).

Play Ball!

*Keep in mind candidates, we fought a rebellion when alcohol tax was only 1%...points to ponder!

*Of course Kennedy had the foresight to buy up all his favorite Cuban cigars before slapping on the embargo.

Game of High Chairs

Greetings and Salutations Antoinette,

America, it's time we built a wall! Yeah I said it! I went there! We need to halt the Vulgarians at the gate. We need to raise the level of discourse, stop the rancor, and consider our words with care. Enough with bumper sticker intellectuals and twitter rants. America needs civility...America needs more wine drinking! When is the last time you saw two people drinking chardonnay raise their voice? Never. Everyone knows you can't fight holding a glass with your finger extended, and you can't yell when you're letting that vintage cabernet roll around your tongue. We have a huuuuge problem with crass language, childish behaviour, lockeroom talk, dragon ladies and playground taunts. Instead of washing out the mouths of the guilty with soap, try wine! It will bring dignity to this vulgar brawl, add much needed sophistication and remedy all of the cackling. To use the classic utensil analogy, and pardon my use of the "F" bomb, we have a big "FORKING" problem. Forks poke and stick things, and when you get them together with knives...look out! More gory than an episode of Game of Thrones. Don't argue...this is what I do. I drink wine, I know things! The solution is in the next tray over....America needs more spooning! Not only is it a great way to sleep, but in an emergency you can drink wine with a spoon, no forking way with a fork. A spoon also knows how to use a knife....to extract the broken cork from the bottle so we can drink more wine. Don't be a Fork, be a spoon! Nestle together and live in harmony. And if you must use a four letter word, use Wine. It will settle arguments peacefully, add sophistication to your banter and if that doesn't work, eventually cause you to pass out and hopefully sleep for the next 4 years!

Respectfully and rancorlessly yours!

Columbus Day Italian Style

Buongiorno Antoinette,

Like the eloquent Bill Murray said,  "We're Americans, with a capital 'A'! You know what that means? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world...We're mutts!" And the good thing about that is we get to partake in every cultures wine drinking festivities. We get to be Micky on St Patrick's Day, Julio on Cinco de Mayo, Pierre on Bastille Day, and Augustus Gloop for Oktoberfest because he takes a huge bite out of September and October, ach der lieber!!! But what about the Italians? It's time we got our Giuseppi on and what better way than to celebrate Italy than on what they accidentally did well...exploration! It was that wrong turn at Albuquerque! Time to turn Columbus Day into exploring Italian wine day. And unlike Marco and Christopher, it's more fun getting lost in a bottle of chianti than on the Atlantic or in the Gobi desert. But our debt is great and the Italians united the world with food and wine. They brought back pasta from China, tomatoes from the new world and now we can have spaghetti with our nebbiolo. Italy wouldn't be Italy and America wouldn't have the Sopranos, the Empire State Building, or Frank Sinatra without Italian exploration. We'd also have a large population of natives who wouldn't know what to call themselves, leading to a bunch of nameless sports teams. So make this Columbus Day weekend one to remember. Jump in your Nina, Pinta, or Santa Maria and head to your local wine shop to stock up on plenty of your favorite Italian grape (leave the milk in the cooler for those hurricane Matthew fanatics), batten down the hatches, and serve up al dente pasta, parmigiana and Barolo all weekend long. Don't worry about the weather, it's October, too cool to spend all that time in the pool looking for Marco ...

Polo!

P.S. Is anybody else wondering what will end up being more valuable...the bling stolen from KK, or the value of the photos, snaps, and texts lifted from her stolen phones?