A Blogtastic Weekend

This weekend Leah and I will be heading out to Long Island to participate in TasteCamp 2009!

The details can be found here.

The sponsors and wineries participating in this event are:

• Bedell Cellars


• Channing Daughters Winery


• Grand Cru Classes


• Jamesport Vineyards


• Long Island Merlot Alliance


• Macari Vineyards


• Paumanok Vineyards


• Raphael


• Red Barn B&B


• Roanoke Vineyards


• Shinn Estate Vineyards


• The Greenporter Hotel


• The Lenz Winery


• Wine Enthusiast


• Wolffer Estate Vineyards

I am looking forward to meeting everyone and having a great time!

Wine Blogging Wednesday #57 – California Inspiration

Fifty-Seven is one of those numbers that a person might throw out as random. I remember reading somewhere that when a person is thinking of a random number it is usually a combination of 3, 5 and 7. However, for the next installment of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the topic is well thought out.

For the month of May, Jeff at the Good Grape will be hosting the next WBW and with the topic as an Homage to Robert Mondavi.

In remembering Robert Mondavi, the challenge for this topic is to pick a California wine that you might have tasted already and revisit the wine and tell a story. The story should be personal, about a fond memory that included the wine, or something special to you that was a part of a memorable stage in your life.

Happy reminiscing!

It’s a real Zhoo out there

There is nothing like a great label to pull you in. In the group of wines that I received from Idaho, one set stood out from the others. And when you see the label images below you will see why.

These wines are made by Hell’s Canyon Winery, which I will review in a future post. What is really special about these wines is the artwork.

Babette Beatty, Zhoo Zhoo label artist is the original Zhoo Zhoo girl. Born in Berlin in 1941 she spent her young life in Rio de Janeiro before traveling the world as a top fashion model in the 1960s.

Each of these images comes with a little bit of poetic editorial on the back of the bottle:

2006 Chardonnay Reserve “Delphine”

You can’t remember whether it was Ibiza or the Isle of Capri. The only important thing was her, standing in the window, the sea air sweeping sunshine into your room. You can still feel the sand between your toes and her hair between your fingers.

2005 Syrah “Antoinette”

You didn’t speak a word of French, but when she whispered in your ear, you knew exactly what she was saying. Sometimes you wonder if it really happened, or if you just imagined her in a daydream.

2005 Claret “Veronique”


The scent of her perfume was intoxicating; the taste of wine on her lips make you swoon. You had never seen nor touched anything as beautiful as her before, and you never would again.

Of these wines the best was the Claret. For me the Chardonnay was a little buttery and fat, with that strange bitterness that I continue to find in Idaho wines. The Syrah was boring, but not bad. The Claret was rich and bright, very juicy and fleshy with plump blueberries.

Its the images that make it fun though. The writing with them makes it a little hokey, but I can't blame them for going over the top.

As requested, a comment about Wine Spectator

Yesterday WineWonkette added this comment on my post Have you met me?:


Rob: Have any comments on this?
http://www.redwinebuzz.com/winesooth/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/wine-spectator-statement.pdf found on twitter


Here is my response:
Thanks for putting this link up here Wonkette!

This is a well thought out statement that Tom Matthews sent, which shows a lot of great work by him and his PR staff (everyone has a PR staff) because he obviously expected the letter to be posted online for the world to see.

I can only speak to my experience with James Molesworth, who covers Chile (the country I represent).

The give and take between wine writers and PR/marketing people such as myself is one that strikes a careful balance, one that I believe is truly necessary.

For instance, everything that Tom Matthews wrote in that letter I find to be accurate in terms of how the magazine reviews wines and how they conduct themselves in relating to the worldwide wine industry (2.5 million readers seems high me, but he would have the numbers in front of him). I have what I consider to be a good relationship with James Molesworth. He travels to Chile roughly once a year to speak with winemakers, check in on new plantings, see what new regions are showing promise and which ones need more time, and to generally cover the news coming out of Chile. Every year I offer any services I can provide that would make his trip easier. If he would let me, I would happily buy his plane ticket, set up the visits for him, set up his hotel arrangements, the works. However, every year he says thanks but no thanks and coordinates the entire trip himself. I would not be doing my job if I did not offer my services, especially for such an influential publication in the wine industry. His publication has enough financial security to allow him to travel to Chile on their dollar; therefore he uses his right to do so.

Consider this however; does every wine writer have that luxury, especially in this economy? Would you as bloggers have as much information about Chile available if Wines of Chile was not here? And this expands into all other country programs, be they Germany, Spain, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Australia, etc.

I could digress to many tangents here but I want to stay on the subject of Wine Spectator. There is one thing that James does come to me for, information that he would not have access to such as overall industry statistics. I have provided him with the facts that Chile is growing in the U.S., more land in Chile is being put under vine every year, and that the hot varieties are Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Carmenere (with Pinot Noir and Syrah showing healthy gains in the market).

For all other publications, from the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to Wine Enthusiast and Wine & Spirits we abide by their requests and policies. Each has earned their audiences’ trust, and I think with good reason.

I relate to bloggers in much the same way as I relate to other journalists. Everyone has a right to information and I do my best to distribute the information, giving everyone full access.

I would be interested to hear what you think about the back and forth between PR people such as myself and the universe of media, both print and online. If you have something to say leave a comment below.

Remembering that yes, we live on this Earth

Today is Earth Day, the day where we all consider changing the way we live in order to better preserve the Earth.

There is really no question that most people, myself included, do not really change their lifestyles to help the earth. Sure we might contribute money to a “save-the-planet” organization or bring out own bag to the grocery store, but eventually we will forget to bring that bag again and when the non-profit comes back to us for more money we may decide not to contribute.

So today I am going to announce that for the next month I am going to write at least one post a week reviewing and honoring those that make the extra effort to produce wine that do not talk about being green once a year but instead live it every day. The wineries I am going to write about grow their grapes in a way that leaves the least negative impact on the Earth. Often they will have their wines certified as organic or biodynamic. However, if a winery does not wish to go through the costly process of certification, I will not hold it against them.

The details of what makes a wine organic somewhat elude me, as the laws are very different in each country. I know that there are very strict U.S. laws in terms of wines being labeled organic. I think the bureaucratic process might take several years, a rain dance, repeated offerings to the labeling gods, a roll of duct tape (because really, what can you not do with duct tape?) and a lot of luck.

Biodynamic agriculture takes organics to the next level. Biodynamic agriculture is defined on wikipedia as:

“Biodynamic agriculture, a method of organic farming that has its basis in a spiritual world-view (anthroposophy, first propounded by Rudolf Steiner), treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a closed, self-nourishing system. Regarded by some proponents as the first modern ecological farming system, biodynamic farming includes organic agriculture's emphasis on manures and composts and exclusion of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include the use of fermented herbal and mineral preparations as compost additives and field sprays and the use of an astronomical sowing and planting calendar.”

A fuller definition of both organic (and labeling laws) and biodynamic can be found here.

Every biodynamic winemaker that I have met approaches the practice a more of a religion than a practice. These winemakers are so passionate about their belief that biodynamic is the best that you cannot help but appreciate their fervor. I am not convinced that one must only harvest on certain days and should only plant when the moon is at a particular point in the sky, but I think there is no question that the attention to detail shown by these winemakers are what really makes these wines truly special.

Which brings me to the Cooper Mountain Vineyards in Oregon, a state with one of the highest standards of naturalism in the U.S. Dr Robert Gross and his wife, Corrine, established this winery in 1987 with plantings of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. The vineyards were certified organic in 1995 by Oregon Tilth (the state’s certifying body) and certified biodynamic in 1999 by Demeter, the worldwide biodynamic certifying organization.

One thing I would like to mention is that Cooper Mountain has a great website. It is extremely helpful, especially to bloggers such as myself looking for information.

I was sent a bottle of the Cooper Mountain Pinot Gris 20th Anniversary Reserve 2007 to taste. I found it very refreshing, with lovely floral notes and lemon zest. Really, the perfect wine for spring and a great way to enter Earth Day.

Idaho’s Earrings – Pend d’Oreille

Continuing in the vein of talking about Idaho, I received a couple of samples from Pend d’Oreille. Julie and Stephen Meyer, both longtime wine enthusiasts who have been working in vineyards and wineries for the last 24 years, established Pend d’Oreille on June 21, 1995. They cut their teeth on the 1985 harvests in Meursault and never looked back. Steve is now the winemaker of Pend d’Oreille.

Again, the winery makes a wide variety of wines, including a huckleberry wine. I have very little experience with wines produced from anything except grapes. I have a blueberry wine on my shelves that I look forward to opening up sooner or later.

I always love hearing the story behind names. For instance, what enticed a company to call their winery “Hangings of the Ear” (literally translated) or Earrings (for those that do not take themselves to be quite so literal)? So, I went right to the source and asked the winemaker, Steve Meyer a few questions.

Could you tell me a little about yourselves and about getting into wine?

Julie and I are the full owners [of Pend d’Oreille]. We started the Winery in 1995 after having worked in the wine business starting in 1985 in Meursault, France. The reason I traveled to France…skiing! I eventually got to ski the Alps, but my time in Meursault changed my life.

We were the first North Idaho Winery, but we now have two small wineries to the south of us in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls. We get together for professional wine tasting to stay sharp, and we do some cooperative wine marketing – mainly through non-profit fundraising.

What led to the name? If my french is still working I translate Pend d'Oreille to Earrings. Is that accurate?

Very good! Actually ear ring in French is pendant d’oreille, and that was the way our lake was originally named in 1812 when David Thompson, a Canadian Fur Trapper and explorer discovered the lake and its natives who were wearing ear rings – thus the ear ring people or pendant d’oreille’s. Over time and much broken French, the “ant” was lost as well as the d’ (thanks to the Idaho Department of Transportation).

Why start a winery in Idaho?

You have to visit Sandpoint to really understand that one. The skiing, biking (our two big passions) and other recreation is phenomenal. We are only a short distance to our Washington vineyards with which are contracted. So the choice was high desert and three hours to ski fresh powder or 20 minutes. Plus, Sandpoint’s beauty is a big tourist draw, so we have access to a very large population, but we don’t have to live in a big suburban area.




In doing my research on this winery I discovered a very interesting program that they announced this past February. They call it “Think Green Drink Red”, a program where they sell their Bistro Rouge Table Wine, a simple blend of what they consider “vin de pays” wine, in a refillable 1.5 L bottle. The purpose is to not only save to consumer money on glass (buying the refill is $9 cheaper than buying the original bottle) but also to conserve glass, which might otherwise be thrown in a landfill. If you’d like to read the press release you can find it here.

I tasted two of their wines, the 2006 Pinot Noir and the 2006 Wood River Terroir Series Malbec. The Pinot was not my favorite, with a very large dose of the bitterness I did not enjoy in the Sawtooth wines. On the other hand, the Malbec was nice. Pouring out of the bottle the wine was an inky dark purple filled with blueberry, butterscotch and vanilla perfume. The taste was vibrant and juicy, a rich ripe cherry with just a little but of tartness at the end.

A bite into Idaho – Sawtooth Winery

As I said before, I have tasted more wines from Idaho than anyone else I know. I really wanted to go out of my comfort zone of regions I am familiar with and try something so new and out of the box. I have to say Idaho certainly quenched that desire.

The first wines to arrive from Idaho were from Sawtooth Winery. The winery, formerly known as Pintler Cellars, was founded in 1987 by Charles Pintler and started as a fifteen-acre vineyard in the heart of the Canyon County region of the Idaho's Snake River Valley. Pintler Cellars joined Corus Estates & Vineyards in 1998. The winery then changed its name to Sawtooth Winery.

Sawtooth Winery is actually owned by a larger parent organization, Corus Estates and Vineyards, formerly Corus Brands. Corus owns several wineries in the northwest corner of the country, including Alder Ridge, Battle Creek, Six Prong and Zefina. Each of these brands are very small producing boutique wineries.

Moving back to Sawtooth, the winery makes a rather wide variety of wines. They have your classic Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah mix that you can find at almost every wineries in the US. However they also experiment with other wines such as Tempranillo, Muscat Blanc, and Late Harvest Gewurztraminer. You can find the full list here and all at reasonable prices for someone looking to explore.

I also tasted the 2005 Tempranillo, 2005 Syrah, 2007 Chardonnay, 2006 Viognier, and 2007 Riesling. Something I need to mention is that the wines, especially the red wines had a very strange metallic bitterness to them. It was really the first time I had tasted something like this in a wine.

The best of the lot that I tasted, and really the only one I can fully recommend is the 2008 Pinot Gris. It was just released on April 1st and is worth picking up if you can find it. From the moment I opened the bottle I knew I was going to enjoy the wine. There was a pleasant floral quality to the wine, with the smell of peaches mixed in. I liked the taste of nectarine with a little bit of white pepper at the end. When I went back to research the wine I found that it is really only mostly Pinot Gris, with a small amount of Chardonnay and Muscat mixed in, probably to give the wine more aromatics and weight. The blend is 86% Pinot Gris, 10% Chardonnay, and 4% Muscat but the fact that it is a blend should not be a deterrent from trying this or any wine.

Fine Kosher Wine from Israel – Wine Blogging Wednesday #56

Welcome to the next Wine Blogging Wednesday installment! Our host today is The Cork Dork who has chosen Fine Kosher Wine for Passover. The challenge is to find a fine kosher wine to report back on.

This is an easier challenge than most people think. Easier for me since I know the PR people for Yarden Inc. but I still think that it would be hard to find a few good bottles of delicious kosher wine.

As my mother would say, what about wine is not kosher? In order to be considered kosher, a Sabbath-observant Jew, starting at the harvest of the grapes and continuing throughout the entire winemaking process, must handle the wine.

There is another process of making a wine kosher called mevushal, which means, “cooked” or “boiled.” Literally, the wines are flash pasteurized, causing the juice of the grapes to simmer or boil. The process is not supposed to have an effect on the flavor of the wine, but most wine drinkers do not particularly care for the results. I honestly cannot weight in since I cannot remember having a wine that was made mevushal.

My choice for this WBW was the 2006 Galil Mountain Barbera from the Upper Galilee in Israel. The mountains of the Upper Galilee rise to heights over 3,000 feet, allowing for cooler temperatures in what would otherwise be an area too hot for grape-growing.

Galil Mountain Winery is a joint venture of Golan Heights Winery and Kibbutz Yiron. The winery has five vineyards in the Upper Galilee Mountains, each with a different microclimate determined by the soil and their elevation on the mountain. With so many different climates available, the winery can make a large variety of grapes.

The wine was great! Even after the few years that I have been tasting wines and armed with the knowledge that you need to taste a wine before writing it off, I was still really surprised by how much I enjoyed this wine. It had that wonderful easy drinking quality that I love from a Barbera, while still showing plenty of flavor. The color was a light ruby. There was liveliness to it that I cannot really describe, with great bursts of cherry and rich wildberries. So bright and juicy that I would have felt more than comfortable opening this wine at an outdoor picnic.

Mommy Bloggers in Danger of being Sued for Their Opinion; Are Wine Bloggers Next?

A story by Emily Friedman, a reporter for ABC News (found here) covered the possibility of the Federal Trade Commission suing bloggers for their opinions.

Mommy bloggers make up a huge portion of the blogosphere and are a very influential target for companies looking to have their products endorsed. Many companies send their products to these bloggers for review (sound familiar??) in hopes that other mommy bloggers will read the review and go purchase their product, starting a chain reaction in the blogosphere of consumers purchasing and reviewing the product.

This is extremely similar to what many wineries are doing right now with wine bloggers. My personal opinion is that wine bloggers are the most passionate group of wine drinkers in the U.S. and as such purchase a great deal of wine. As a wine blogger I read as many blogs by other wine bloggers as I can. I see all of the reviews and if one is particularly enthusiastic about the wine and I see it on the shelf I am much more likely to purchase it. That is one of the reasons I picked up the bottle of the Hahn Estates Meritage and then wrote about it.

The idea that the government might come after me for reviewing a product is very scary, although I think it very improbable. There are currently hundreds of wine blogs (as I am sure there are nearing thousands of mommy blogs). To come after each blog because of what they said would be a very hefty chore.
Read the article and comment below. I would be very interested on what the rest of the wine bloggers think.

Do you know about Idaho?

A few months ago I started working on a few stories about wines from areas that you would never think about. I ask the PR world to contact me, and a few did. It is good to see that the call and response aspect of the PR world is still very active and alive.

And so a representative of Idaho’s Snake River Valley contacted me. I would guess that I have probably tasted more wines from Idaho than most other bloggers, and I would even go so far as to say many professional wine writers.

The Snake River Valley was very recently made AVA. It is named for the river that winds through Southern Idaho’s agricultural land. The climate of the region has a hot growing season through mid-summer with cool evenings. The first petition for this region occurred in 2002 with the approval coming in April of 2007. The AVA spans 8,263 square miles, with 90% of vineyards planted in Idaho within its boundaries. Today there are roughly 1,800 acres under vine.

I will definitely be posting about many of the wineries that I have tried. I have not finished tasting through them all yet (amazing how much time that takes) but I have it in my mind to finish tasting either this week or next.

Have you tasted many wines from Idaho? What was your experience?

Meeting people is a great way to want to try their wine

A while ago I went to Total Wine to explore the store and pick up a few bottles. I ended up with more than a few bottles, but one of the many I picked up was the Hahn Estates Meritage 2006. Around the blogosphere I got to know Lisa de Bruin, the New Media Marketing Director for the winery. Lisa writes her own blog, where she explores the world of relating to social media and how the mass amounts of bloggers relate to the world. Lisa and Hahn Estates are easily at the forefront of what I believe will be a growing trend of wineries and country promotional organizations having a dedicated staffer whose job it is to explore and relate to online media. I think Lisa and Hahn Estates do a fantastic job. They have started what they hope to be a regular bloggers tasting forum where wineries and bloggers can come together to discuss how each views the wine industry as it is today.

It seems to me that the people doing the best work for bloggers are other bloggers that have access to wineries, samples, or information. Besides Lisa, Lenn Thompson has been very influential in the New York wine industry and has set up a blogger event called TasteCamp (which I am very pleased to be attending). Other bloggers including dudes and lushes, all the way up to established wine writers such as Steve Heimoff of the Wine Enthusiast make mention of other bloggers that they find to be thoughtful and interesting to read. It should be noted that if I mention someone here I think it is well worth the time to check them out.

With that aside however, I want to focus on Hahn Estates.

Nicolaus Hahn and his wife Gaby founded Hahn Estates in the mid 70’s when they experienced that bug that led to a compulsion to start a winery. May I be inflicted one day with the same disease. After meeting with success for their Smith & Hook brand they started the Hahn Estates brand in 1991. The Hahn Estates line is meant to be more approachable by the average consumer as well as reasonably priced.

The wine was pleasant. It had a purple red color and smelled of sweet red cherries with muddled assorted berries. The taste started on the sour cherry side and then transitioned into blueberry punctuated by black pepper. At first I found the wine to be a little disjointed, with a sense of it not knowing how it wanted to present itself. However, once I added food I was very pleased with my purchase. I think this wine was made for rosemary lamb chops with focaccia bread. The blend on the wine is 33% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Petit Verdot, 11% Cabernet Franc, and 7% Malbec. There were 10,500 cases produced and the suggested retail price is $20, although I purchased the bottle for about $17.

I had a few questions for the winemaker, so Lisa put me in touch with Paul Clifton, who is in charge of the Hahn Estates, Hahn SLH (Santa Lucia Highlands), and Lucienne lines from the winery. Since the bottle said Central Coast as the AVA I wondered if the blended grapes came more from one region within the Central Coast than the others.

Paul said:

“Regarding the fruit for the Meritage: The Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Petite Verdot come from Paso Robles or southern Monterey County in the San Antonio AVA. The Merlot comes from Arroyo Seco and the Malbec comes from the Santa Lucia Highlands. Over the past 7 years, with the growth of our brands, we have worked with many growers up and down the Central coast with all these Bordeaux varietals. Through a lot of trial and error in working with Growers, as well as our own vineyards, we have determined these AVA’s to be the best for the style of Meritage we put together.

Most of the Bordeaux varieties do very well in warmer areas like Paso and southern Monterey County. However, in 1999, we planted a small block of Malbec in the Santa Lucia Highlands (a cool climate) for a tasting room wine and it has turned out to be an incredible blender with dark color and intense tannic structure. Since it was successful, we planted more Malbec to blend into the Meritage.”

Overall I would say this is a fair wine. It gave me just as much as I felt I had paid for, which is a rare marvel these days.

Dancing the Texas Two-Sip

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to have participated in an online tasting. The idea was really cool (and one I had been thinking about for a while). The guiding force behind the tasting was Texas, namely the Texas Department of Agriculture.

I fully respect organizations designed to promote a regions wines (I work for several) and I think the Texas promoters did a great job with this tasting. For the past six months the TDA has been doing these tastings to ensure that more people open their eyes to how good Texas wines can be, and with this experience I am now a believer.

Here is the set up, the TDA sent me ten wines: five of them Texas wines and the other five were wines from around the world. The catch was that each was wrapped in foil so that I could not tell which is which. Each wine was also labeled one through five and A or B. This allowed me to taste the wines blind, that is taste the A wines against the B wines without knowing which one came from Texas.

So, I had the wines and received direction to sign onto a web conference site on Tuesday night. Devon Broglie, Associate Team Leader for Whole Foods Market and Craig Collins, manager for Prestige Wine Cellars then guided me through the wines.

When asked about the Two-Sip program, Bobby Champion, director of the TDA Wine Marketing Program said, “We host Texas Two-Sip blind tasting comparisons as a way to avoid any preconceived biases or ideas about Texas wines and to show how well Texas wines compare against other highly respected wines.”

We had flights of Viognier, Rhone style blends, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, and Orange Muscat. For each we tasted the wines and then opened them up to see what they were. Participants could type in questions to the presenters, but we could not speak directly to them until after the tasting.

The Viogniers were a Brennen Viognier 2008 from Comanche Texas, between the Hill Country and High Plains growing regions and a Yalumba Viognier 2007 from the Eden Valley of Australia. The Brennen was zesty with a slight sparkle and a bit of minerality and some nice peaches and apricot notes. The Yalumba presented riper, with many of the same characteristics as the Brennen but, it was a little richer and fatter on the taste. I preferred the Texas wine, but only slightly. Both retail in the $18 - $19 range

The Rhone reds were a bottle of the La Vieille Ferme Rouge 2006 from Mount Ventoux in the Rhone region of France and the Llano Signature Melange 2007 from west Texas and the High Plains. I was not particularly pleased with either of these wines. The Rhone wine was rather tasteless to me, very thin and without a defining taste in my opinion. The Texas wine had a funky nose and a weird salty taste. The La Vieille is $8 and the Llano is $11.

Then the Sangiovese. On one side was the Badia Coltibuono Chianti Classico 2006 and the other was the McPherson Sangiovese 2006. I really liked the Badia Coltibuono. I thought there was a very pleasant tartness to it, with nice juicy raspberry and strawberry flavors that came through. The McPherson smelled beautiful, a nice floral nose with a bit of vanilla. On the taste I was a little disappoint though, as I felt the opening strawberry jam was then swallowed up by vanilla and butterscotch. A little too much oak for me. The Badia Coltibuono is $25 and the McPherson is $18.

Next up, Inwood Cornelious Tempranillo 2007 and the Pesquera Tinto Ribera del Duero 2005. I really apologize for this but I was not excited about either of these. I will spare you my notes, but while I did taste the Inwood, I could not bring my self to taste the Pesquera after smelling it. A friend of mine once told me, “Why would you put that in your mouth? That’s why god gave you a nose.” Hopefully I was just cursed with a bad bottle. The Inwood is $39.50 and the Pesquera is $35.

Last round, the dessert wines. From Texas was the Texas Hills Orange Moscato 2005. From California was the Quady Electra Orange Muscat 2007. I wrote about the Quady wines before and was not blown away. Suffice to say this one did not change my feeling about the winery. This wine gave off an interesting peach and bright blood orange aroma that was really pleasant. The taste however made me think of a artificially flavored push pop. And it was fizzy! The Texas Hills wine showed a orange zest and floral white peach on the nose and a candied apricot on the taste. It was rich with just enough acid to make me want another sip. Really lovely. The Texas Hills is $17.50 and the Quady is $13.

Overall, a great experience.

Drink the Dregs

Stop what you are reading right now and go to the Dregs Report: http://dregsreport.com/

Seriously.

You're regret not going.

Really, I'm not half as funny as I think you think I am. Go visit the Dregs Report.

http://dregsreport.com/

Happy April Fool's Day

It is a tough world right now, but every year April 1st comes around and everyone gets excited to see what will happen. The one thing that I love about April Fool's Day is the sense of the ridiculous and that perfect moment when someone realizes that you played a trick on them.

I seriously considered doing a trick at work today, but as my mother told me, "Perhaps it is best not to."

I would love to hear about the jokes other people have played today. I will be reading several hundred blogs and many will have great stories and good gags on them. Feel free to post them here if you made one, or send them to me. I always love a good joke.