Mount Snow Weekend Round-Up: A Skiing Story

Sally and I went to Mount Snow over the weekend for what proved to be a fun, somewhat eventful weekend.

Sally and me at Mount Snow Saturday afternoon

Danno's Super-Quick Primer on Wine

My buddy Jim said he needs to get a quick Wine 101 from me. We're supposed to meet at a local win bar soon, but I'm a little skeptical about how much we can get done on such a monstrously complicated topic in a single evening.

I've gotten into wine lately because my wife and I drink a lot of wine, and I felt like I needed a new challenge after years spent sampling our local craft beer scene. I'm like a Level 15 beer snob but at best a Level 3 or 4 wine snob. So I'm drinking wine these days at least in part because I just got interested in it and realized that I didn't know quite as much as I thought that I did. 

Thankfully, wine is a fascinating topic overall.

Blog Shots: Meeker Trail & Hopkins Vineyard

As discussed on AsForFootball.Com over the weekend, Saturday's game against now #13 Wake Forest was one of the wildest, most emotional roller coaster rides I've ever experienced at Michie Stadium. The Black Knights put up nearly 600 yards of total offense and well over 400 yards rushing, and they maintained time-of-possession for almost 45 full minutes, but they still lost by 14 points -- on basically two plays. It took me a good, long while to come down. Even after sleeping on it, writing on it, and getting in a workout in the pool, I still felt like I was ready to spit fire and punish the guilty.

Sally came to my rescue, as she often does in these situations. It's her birthday later this week. As part of a multi-week celebration, we went hiking along the Meeker Trail near Lake Waramaug in the Western Connecticut Highlands, followed by a wine tasting expedition to Hopkins Vineyard.

It took some doing, but this finally get me back on something like an even keel emotionally.

Pics from the day after the jump.

Exploring Wine (Part 1)

Wine has become my latest obsession. It started when my buddy showed me the wine cellar in his new house, and seeing that cellar got me interested enough to investigate the possibilities of building one in my basement. This turned out to be a lot more involved than I thought that it would be -- more on that in a future post -- but I realized in the process of researching the idea that I didn't know nearly as much about wine as I thought that I did.

As has proven to be the case with any number of things over the years, a lot of what I thought I knew came from my folks, who weren't nearly as educated about some of this stuff as they made an effort to seem back in the day. It's to the point now where I'm considering rebranding my infamous "cook book" as something else entirely, Things That I Wish My Father Had Taught Me. 

Inclusive of wine content, I might have something like 30K words floating around in various spots on my hard drive. I just need to start getting it together and massaging into some kind of cohesive whole. Imagine a book exploring wine, grilling, and other aspects of the finer things in life but done in the style of my memoir, and you can maybe get a sense of the vibe. 

I always think of this project as a lifestyle handbook for Firsties about to commission. But we'll see.

At Chamard Vineyards in Coastal Connecticut yesterday.

In any event, this post is an attempt to start getting some of my thoughts down on paper. It's the middle of football season, so I have literally a million other things that I need to be doing right now, but friends, it's the side-hustles that keep me sane. Bear with me for a few minutes. Besides, I am really enjoying this exploration of wines.

5 Things on a Friday: One Team?

Happy Friday, everybody!

Let's start with a little geography lesson, yeah?  It's apropos for a Friday morning.

What's your favorite Italian Wines region? #wine #italy #vino @KellyMitchell @FoodBlogUK @onceuponawine_ @us_sommelier @winewankers @Sommelier72 @vinhoverdewines @WineFolly @BarbaraRocci @amthewinersclub @JMiquelWine pic.twitter.com/1NfXi8qLFD

— Italian Wine Blogger (@WineBlogRoll) January 17, 2018

News & Notes: Running through my Twitter feed

I wasn't going to check in this morning, but then I saw the following and couldn't resist.

Putin has small fingers. You know what that means. pic.twitter.com/Eyb0ukXr8a
— Hayden Smith (@NewsPanic) March 14, 2015

It's all downhill from here, I'm sure.