The Numbing of the Shrew

And thereby hangs a tail

Photo courtesy of the BBC

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My Pet Goat

Here's looking at ewe, kid


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Ageing Grapefully


Shakespeare's camera sure took funny pictures

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Indy-pendence

Don't distract him! Some of that wine might be mine.

I received my copy of Red Barn Winemaking's newsletter last week, and the results were great. Bob Birkett (pictured above) runs a great shop in Demotte, Indiana, and he encourages his customers to enter their wines in the Indy International Wine Competition. I've previously talked about how well I did this year, but I was far from the only one bringing home medals: Bob's friends took home a pile, including a pair of double-golds (that's pretty much a perfect score!) and a best of class trophy for mead--good show!

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Friends from Abroad

The South Hills crew at the ball park. It's always the party deck when they're around!

One of the best benefits of my job is getting to meet with thousands of new people, and having them become old friends. Here in my second decade of doing the world's oddest job I've gotten to know folks from around the globe, all united in a common delight in making our own wine at home. Last week in Cleveland at the LD Carlson conference I got a chance to hang out with old and new friends.

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Vive la Revolucion?

Now I will punish you with the silent treatment! Once I get out of this damn box . . .

It's a funny old world we live in these days. Compared to the days of sweet naivete in my youth, the nightly news often drives me to that second glass of wine. But when I see headlines like Militants Bomb Co-Ops In South of France or Injured by Home-made Bomb, I expect to read about angry, marginalized folks with deep convictions about ancestral wrongs or funny ideas about ethnicity or religion. I don't expect to hear that it's a bunch of angry French winemakers blowing stuff up.

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LD Carlson Retailer Conference--Cleveland Rocks!

The roar of the crowd!



I'm blogging this from the Carnegie room at the fabulous Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Cleveland, where I'm speaking at the LD Carlson annual retailer conference. Carlson is our US distributor, and has been since the 1980's. Over the years I've worked with a lot of other companies and distributors, and the folks at LD are a dream. They give their dealers excellent service, deliver on time every time, and really 'get' the home winemaking business. They really are the key to the success of Winexpert's products in the USA, and the growth of the whole industry.

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Celebrating

Floyd Vandergrift

Strange as it may seem, not all celebrations involve wine for me. Sometimes they just . . . celebrate. It was my father's 75th birthday last Thursday, and we toasted with friends and family.

I may not have turned out a lot like my Dad, at least on the surface, but he taught me a great number of things. He taught me how to rebuild carburettors, make a garden, chat up girls, appreciate a joke, and above all he taught me (by example) to enjoy myself, whether it was chatting up girls or working on cars. It's Dad's great capacity for taking pleasure in life that I've valued most.

He also taught me the most important lesson about generosity I'll ever learn. When I was a kid working on my first car, an old beater Chevy, I repaired the radiator but forgot to replace the water I used for testing it with proper anti-freeze. The first frost we had cracked the engine block like an egg. I was terribly dismayed, as I needed the car to get back and forth to my new job, and I couldn't afford to buy a new engine–certainly not a new car.

Dad lent me the money to buy a used engine, and we rebuilt it together, and (with a lot of coaching and advice from friends, neighbours and shadetree mechanics of all stripes) we got it dropped into the car and running great, all in a couple of days.

Finally I got my first paycheque and I paid him back every dime, leaving me with only enough gas money for two weeks, and not a penny more. When I handed him the cash he handed a twenty right back.

"Pop, what are you doing?"

"I remember being in about your situation, getting a payday and being left without even enough money to go out for a beer. Go on, don't tell your mother."

I'll never forget the funny smile he had. I've done my best bring that kind of generosity into my life, and if I'm ever uncertain about something I'm doing or have to make a judgement on, I only have to ask, "If Pop were here, would he be proud of me?"

It answers every question. Happy birthday, Dad, and thanks for everything.

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Wined Up, Up, and Away!

Hard to believe they're all from the same species

It's been a busy week at Chaos Manor, what with gardening season in full swing, berries coming ripe and needing to be made into jam, the annual cardoon harvest, and barbecues and get-togethers with chums. Barely a moment to wind the cat and put out the alarm clock!

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Two-Buck Dundee?

Whoa, now that's truth in advertising!

Australian retailer Dan Murphy's has noticed an amazing phenomenon: inexpensively priced wine sells quite well. In fact, they sold 100,000 cases of wine at $1.99 per bottle in only seven days.

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The Wine Man's Burden

With apologies to the maker's of Pear's soap (the original advertisement)

and anyone with a spec of artistic talent

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Winexpert, Vineco and . . . World Vintner's

Now there's some cognitive dissonance--who'd have ever

thought I'd paste that picture up on my blog?

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Canada Day Wined-Up

You know how hard it is to find a red maple leaf in July?

Happy Canada Day, the greatest day of the year. In addition to being the celebration of our nation, today has a lot of significance for us Canucks:

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