Ok, party’s over, time to get back to work! ☹️ It’s weird to have Christmas and New Years Day on a Wednesday; it chops up the holiday and forces us to make decisions about how many days to take off, or when to come back to work. I chose to come back to a quiet work place and ease into the new year. Next Monday will no doubt be different.

I love wine. period. full stop. I have loved wine almost as long as i can remember. my first memory of wine was the sweet communion wine in the Orthodox Russian church on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco when i was three years old.

When i was growing up in the City, my parents (mostly my dad) would have a glass of wine with dinner, most often a jug wine from Carlo Rossi, Italian Swiss Colony, Franzia, or if we were lucky, Gallo. I’d sometimes get a small taste of whatever dad was drinking and it was usually unmemorable, a bit sweet and usually red, although for bigger family events we would also get white jug wine.

Normally the wine was an afterthought, something to wash down the delicious home made food mom made. It was nothing too special, although on the rare occasion someone might bring a bottle of something a bit better (i.e. NOT in a gallon jug). I remember my Uncle Willi’s go-to was Weibel Green Hungarian, which I surprised myself in remembering.