We have had several different styles of wine glasses in our home over the 38 year of marriage and until recently, we have never paid much attention to what we were drinking out of. We do have the red wine (balloons) ever since my friend pointed out, “You need to drink reds out a glass like that and not the skinny ones!”

Traveling for a large company as I do, takes me to some really strange, wonderful and interesting places. On just that type of a 3 day trip to do “all-day” meetings I ended up in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the fall of 2007. I stumbled onto a local winery when I was unconsciously thumbing through the rack of pamphlets and brochures for the local area near the elevator at the hotel, mostly out of boredom, waiting for it to come back down to the lobby. One caught my eye as it was a winery/tasting room/restaurant not far from the hotel and meeting facility.

I travel for a living with a major company and I often end up in Las Vegas for national trade shows. I had just returned from one of my many road trips for the company and was sitting down with my wife and sharing a great bottle of pinot noir that Friday evening. She told me that she had debated telling me about a flyer she had opened that was in the mail from the “Wine Spectator” advertising the Las Vegas “Grand Tour” wine tasting event in May.

A couple of years ago, my nephew and his lovely bride were to be married in Palo Alto, California and my wife and I were planning to attend. Naturally, I took a few extra of my vacation days to travel to “wine country” seeing that we were so close and June was a great time to be there. We had hit on the fact that we both really like the “Russian River Valley” pinot noirs and would like to visit wineries in that area around Santa Rosa and Healdsburg for a few days and really enjoy ourselves. Great idea!

Who didn’t see the movie “Sideways” and didn’t just love it? I did! That movie has been credited with the biggest upsurge in the interest and sales of pinot noir in the history of wine in the United States. My wife and I saw it when we were going through a phase where we only drank cabernet and occasionally a merlot – that’s it! We were stuck in a rut, but we liked it.