Wine around the world

Beer wine and Spirits have a special on until 2nd August.

20% off All Slabs and Blocks of Beer

This offer doesn’t require a discount code or coupon – it’s available instore.

So what’s the difference between a slab of beer and a block?  As far as I can tell, nothing.  Other than the way it’s packaged.  I believe you still get the same quantity of beer.

Savings are based on Beer Wine and Spirit’s standard selling price.

I’m having a good old-fashioned argument with some fellow on the talklaw.co.nz forums (which I’ve never been on before, but with all the talk of alcohol reforms at the moment in New Zealand, I had to jump in to the ring) about why New Zealand has a “culture of drinking”. Personally, I’m arguing that it’s because it’s bloody enjoyable. He (I am assuming it is a ‘he’, judging from the way he writes) is babbling on about something or other about how liberals and hippies (no, really) have hijacked the education system and are instilling immorality into the children that we have entrusted in their care. This fellow apparently hasn’t set foot in my old school. Nor has he looked at the title of the forum discussion and thought of an answer to what he’s actually being asked.

But I want to know what you all think about this. Why do people drink to the point of intoxication? Why do we have a “culture of drinking”? Is there anything wrong with that? Pop down a comment below, and let me know what your take on it is.

Or, even better, visit the forum itself here, and throw in your two cents.

Edit: the talklaw.co.nz site seems to have gone down for now. While it’s nice to think that I single-handedly brought the system down with my eloquent writing and incisive wit, it’s more likely to just be a malfunction of some sort. More on these developments as they happen.

Hello hello,

So I was going through different blogs on the internet and some vlogs on youtube and it got me thinking.  What makes your blog/vlog stand out from the rest?  What consistent thing do you have that makes people always remember you?  I never really thought about this or really cared before but now it’s come up to be almost important to me.  I thought it was enough to have a special name, but other people have the same name as me so I needed something else.  No matter how small or how big it had to be something and I just thought of the perfect thing.  “Cheers!”  No matter what the topic of my blog or how short or log it is, “Cheers” is always found at the end of my blog.  So until I find something better I guess that’s what it’ll be.

Cheers!

Cheers,

-Midnitez

There are only a few more summer beers I have yet to try and then I will be done! And then I can move on to my fall seasonals!!! No I think I will cut back on the beer blogging and just do a couple a month. I will in the fall focus more on design and politics, but more so with design.

Pulled this beer out of a six pack since it was already broken up, which means it is okay to continue to do so. Red Hook’s Sunrye wasn’t much of anything when put next to other summer beers, but I will say it did better against the Wakco. It had a spicy and almost an autumnal taste to it, which threw me off since this is a summer ale and not a fall seasonal. Other than that it had the classic summer beer qualities; light in body, citrus flavor, and refreshing. But like I said, I am not a fan and probably wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, but I will say try it because you may like it better than I did.

I hope everyone is doing well on what is another beautiful Thursday in San Diego.

I took most of the day off today, save this blog to spend some time with my wonderful wife who(as a school counselor) returns to work first thing in the morning. Not only willl she miss being able to sleep in past six thirty, I’ll miss being able to see her during the day.

That being said, I’m extremely excited to start really, really pushing to get Uncorked Ventures up and off the ground in a timely and stable manner.

I’ve had a few more interactions with wine owners over the past few days and everything continues to be a complete positive experience. It also has reminded me that not all of my real estate background is going to go to waste in the wine industry. For example, I have spoken with Doug McCrea from McCrea cellars, the Washington winery I’d previously mentioned. He has talked about a couple of things I find especially interesting that I’ll come back to in later entries:

1) The location listed on the bottle is where the wine was bottled, not where the grapes are grown. In some areas this isn’t that important because climates are consistent(think Tuscany Italy) but if you’re paying for Napa grapes….you should be getting Napa grapes and not Victorville grapes.

2) The national wine publications don’t give enough respect to west coast wineries outside of northern California. I would say the quality of the Napa/Sonoma region surpasses what you find anywhere in the world outside of Bordeaux, however there are plenty of other wineries that provide an outstanding product. I wish I had an old copy of the Robert Parker map that I saw in a Santa Barbara wine store, but the picture of the west coast showing the wine making regions showed California only between Napa and Santa Barbara. To me I do see a sense of that type of thinking, I think having a couple of people working to start a wine club who haven’t been brought up in the industry should allow us to look at certain underappreciated labels with fresh eyes.

For example I know my business partner Matt has been very happy with the quality of wines offered in Paso Robles on the central coast. Finding areas that are producing consistent, what he considers 90+ point wines across different varietals and bottlers is not common.

We’re looking forward to working with great winemakers that produce consistently great product…..that might just not have gotten the right breaks to really expand their business yet.

What’s on tap for me? You should be able to “hear” this blog via podcast in the very near future.

Thanks for your time and please join or Interest List, or Become a Fan on Facebook.

The past couple of days I have been blogging from our “old” computer which is upstairs in the “office” of our apartment. Josh has been hogging the laptop as of late, though I am glad he’s at least getting our money’s worth out of what we pay for internet access

This computer is usually okay for using Windows Live Writer but when it comes to internet, which I had to access this time around, it is slower than anything I can even imagine. It just took me 29 minutes to actually start blogging from the time I sat down. I can’t wait to get rid of this thing.

Anyway, sorry I didn’t post yesterday but I got home late and Josh was on the fast computer (ugh).

When I woke up yesterday morning, I had a strong urge (and a few extra minutes) to do some yoga, so I chose Yoga Download’s 20 minute hip opening flow class. It was awesome!

The day’s eats started off the same as the previous one with banana oatmeal with PB. I think I am finally getting burned out on bananas so I might have to come up with a new fruit to put in my oats for next week

We did a 60 minute cardio workout, warming up for 5 minutes on the treadmill, doing intervals on the bike for 40 and then another 5 on the tread to cool down. It was intense!

I also had my friend, who is a trainer, do some measurements on me so I can see where I stand…more on that later (don’t worry I’m optimistic as usual)!

Mid-morning I had my very last mini Larabar…I would be sad but I’ve had them for so long that I’m kind of glad to have used them all up!

Lunch was another salad…

Romaine, green pepper, red pepper, cucumber, and honey mustard dressing

This was just a side for the main entree…

What is this?

I had a coupon for $2 off a Kashi meal so I took advantage and got this bad boy for just a little over $1. Pretty soon I’m going to write about how to be healthy and try new stuff on a budget because I keep figuring these little things out.

The meal was good but I was glad I paired it with the salad because I don’t think it would’ve been filling enough on its own. The only one I’ve had that was is the Black Bean Mango and I’m pretty sure that is due to the beans.

Mid-afternoon, I had a carrot with PB as a snack which held me over very well!

When I got to Courtney’s that evening, she offered me the last glass of Yellow Tail Shiraz and I could not pass it up, I hadn’t had good red wine in a while…I know it’s cheap but Yellow Tail is one of my favorite brands!

Dinner was Margie’s bean loaf (a faux meatloaf made with beans and veggies), green peas, corn, and mashed potatoes that I brought. They are out of a bag, Ore Ida brand I believe, red potatoes that you steam in the micro and then mash once they are done. They are not the most cost effective things in the world, but they were way healthier than most instant or already made mashed potatoes!

Forgot to mention the bean loaf and potatoes got a drizzle of veggie gravy on them

For dessert, Beth brought confetti cookies and a homemade lemon icing “dip” which was too runny to ice the cookies with. She said it was made with lemon zest and powdered sugar, which is something I would usually avoid (trying to steer clear of the added sugar) but I tried it and it was great I like to make exceptions once in a while!

I also had some decaf vanilla chai tea while we watched the most recent 2 episodes of True Blood. I really enjoy my regular night with the girls, I think it’s one of the things that keeps me sane!

Hope you all had a great Wednesday…be back soon with today and a special post about cooking with canola!