“You know, training for this marathon is really interfering with my wine drinking,” I groused to Dry one day as we shared wine talk from the previous night. She’d enjoyed an Albarino with fresh fish the previous night and was a bit hazy that morning. I had enjoyed nothing and gone to bed at 9 after eating pasta, only to wake up at the crack of dawn to run 8 miles. I was feeling glum. And sore.

It’s not that I regret my decision to train (and run!) in the San Francisco Marathon on July 26. I love, love, love running and the feeling I get after a long run is worth nearly every early bedtime. I’ve always been someone who wants to push her body to see exactly how far it can go.

But. Read the full story

Hopefully, by now you know Roses can be as different from White Zins as Daniel Craig is from Spencer Pratt.
 
If not, let me tell you: Today’s rose’s are not your mama’s White Zin’s. They can be dry, refreshing, crisp, and a darn-tooting good wine you should be proud to drink.
 
The Swirl Girls received this Rose with a couple of other Rose’s to review for the paper. It’s been a great way to expand my palate by learning the differences in Rose’s and what I like (a little sweeter please) and what I would probably not buy (too dry…pass!). This one retails for $14. Read the full story

We were seduced.

Spoiled, spellbound, serenaded, suckered, swept away.

We didn’t really stand a chance. Once we had tried those Bordeaux wines, their powerful memory imprinted in our brains…well, it’s not our fault we couldn’t get as excited about wines from the Pacific Northwest. But that was our bad. Read the full story

My father died eight years, one week and one day ago when his plane crashed into a vineyard in Southern Hungary.

When I went to Hungary for his funeral, my stepmother took me to the site of the crash. Because of differences in national airline investigations, we could walk around the area freely.
 
I remember how the ground had opened up to welcome the plane. I remember the gravelly soil, which now I know makes for a good vineyard, a wine that struggles and has depth and character, much like me, today. I remember the gaping indentation, the hole where the nose of the plane impacted with the ground; the burned, scarred outline of the wing, like a body outline in chalk but burned away, marking: a plane died here.

I picked up pieces of bent metal, felt the charred ground. It was quiet – so quiet and still, and in a strange way peaceful. In the surrounding area, I could see the vineyards though I don’t remember any grapes, just the rows. Nearby, a century-old stone well stood impassively, it had already seen everything. I dropped a forint down, waited for the sound of it hitting the water, having nothing to wish for.

It was a sad day, a sad year. Read the full story

It’s a rare, sad occasion when a night of great food and a bottle of wine ends like this:

“You take the wine…no, you take the wine…no, honestly, I won’t drink it…well I didn’t like it either! You take it!”

It’s just…wrong.

(First, it’s wrong that there’s a half-bottle of leftover wine, but that’s another story.)

This was charting new territory in my book. (Okay, maybe not entirely new as the early 20s/college years are known for some really bad wine drinking days.) But I’m past that point. I kind of know what I like and “wine guide” everything on my iPhone before buying and don’t usually hate a wine much these days.

Especially not a $20 bottle of wine! Read the full story

If you take a group of journalists just starting to learn about wine (the Winettes), you probably wouldn’t be that surprised to know that eventually, we start describing wine as a storyteller or wordsmith would. We know we’ve gotten to the good part of the night when we start describing wine as clothes or actresses.

One of the Winettes, Tiff, is particularly good at descriptions.

“It’s like a slinky dress that you’d wear with out to the opera.” Or: “It’s like a velour scarf.” She’s got a great palate and even better way with words. We’re kind of jealous of her.

I like to throw these games into the Winettes because it makes the wines more identifiable then just “aromatic, dark fruits with a hint of oak and spice and a medium finish.”

But when you say: “this wine is Marilyn Monroe just starting her evening…” well, you get the idea. Read the full story

A few weeks ago, The Wine Crush www.WineCrush.com and the Chardonnay Queen Laura Lawson invited me to talk on her Wine Crush radio. Of course, I was terrified, but since I’m willing to do just about anything for the Swirl Girls, I gulped, agreed, and practiced my breathing.

My mother had one piece of advice: Slow down. I took the warning seriously.

Actually being interviewed by Laura was a lot less stressful then the trepidation I felt the week before. She was easy to talk with and we had fun laughing at ourselves. We discussed a blog entry I wrote weeks ago questioning whether to open my nice bottles of wine or stash them away when my friends came over. We also talked about the background the Swirl Girls have in wine (drinking) and what we hope to accomplish.

If you’d like to hear me talk a little bit too fast, you can by clicking here:

http://www.winecrush.com/handler.cfm/template,audio_tabs/cat_id,43213?med_id=1369192

Thanks for listening!

The Swirl Girls are now in cyberspace! Become our fans on Facebook at Swirl Girls. Follow along with us on Twitter @SwirlGirls. Better yet, tell us who we should be following! It’s a great chance to get to know you and for you to get to know us! Hope to see you there…

Occasionally, our food blogger gets wine-related things sent to her for review and has been kind enough to pass them on to one of the Swirlers to review for the paper and this blog. When I got an email from her saying she had received some wine and did I want to review it, I ran to her desk, grabbed the box, and literally ran out of the building.

I unpacked the box and found several beautiful rosés staring at me, almost begging for a summer soireé. So I invited over the Swirlers and set about to find the perfect food pairings.

I consulted Dry-Gwen, who consulted her books about food and wine pairings and together we came up with a menu specifically designed for the rosés.

We started out on my back porch in true summer-sipping style with the 2008 El Coto Rioja, a blend of Grenache and Tempranillo and a goat-fig cheese spread with fresh bread. It has a suggested retail price of 12 dollars. We were all blown away by the color of the wine. It was truly one of most beautiful colors I’ve ever seen in a wine. Pink, cotton candy and a hue that said “savor me.” I made each Swirler give me her impression, so based on what sort of wine you like, you know whom you can trust. Here goes: Read the full story

I’m being interviewed this afternoon on Wine Crush! I’m terrified but hoping to get through the whole experience without looking like a moron. Or talking too fast.

Wine Crush is hosted by wine lover (and Chardonnay enthusiast) Laura Lawson.

Sadly, Wine Crush doesn’t air on our radio stations in South Florida but you can listen at their web site once they post the new program, which is pretty fast as near as I can tell.

Once it goes up, if I succeed in the above two goals, we’ll post it here. Until then, any suggestions or words of comfort are highly appreciated!