tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183242802011-12-03T03:27:31.312-05:00Life on the vineI comment on wines, and the industry. I believe that you can enjoy good wine, sometimes even great wine, without spending a fortune.McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.comBlogger171100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1144108010095991082006-04-03T19:30:00.000-04:002007-04-02T05:09:31.816-04:00Don't give me that girlie-man wineSeveral months ago, I took the wine industry to task for marketing a low-cal white wine to women. It was a pretty bad wine -- dry, tasteless and lifeless. What the industry needed to do, I argued, was show women some real respect -- cut them in on the financial action in the wine industry, put them on corporate boards of directors, etc.Now comes word that the McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1142985169405004352006-03-21T18:48:00.000-05:002007-03-13T08:00:23.770-04:00Greetings, from New OrleansYou may have been wondering these last two weeks: How come McQueen hasn't updated his wine blog? Well, I'm in transition.I no longer operate out of Macon, Georgia. I have moved to New Orleans, for a new job with a new company. I still manage journalists. I just do so now in a more interesting city (sorry, Macon, no disrespect meant, but the Big Easy, even damaged by McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1141691706571357192006-03-06T19:34:00.000-05:002006-03-06T19:35:06.583-05:00Soup, salad, vino You've seen the same question that I have dozens of times. Typical question: What wine should I order with my soup and salad? Typical answer: Don't bother. Order the wine to fit the main entree, as in the meat, you are ordering with that meal. That answer only takes you so far. What if you just want a soup and a salad for dinner? Which is what happened to me McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1141094024784787192006-02-27T21:18:00.000-05:002006-02-27T21:33:44.806-05:00Wine goes well with pizza, too When we eat pizza, we probably think of several drinks that would go well with our pie -- a soft drink, particularly a Pepsi or a coke, or maybe an ice cold beer. Rarely do we think about a nice red wine with our pizza. But we should: There are several wines that match up very well with the tomato sauce, meat, cheese and bread crust that are the basic McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1140463393054588992006-02-20T14:20:00.000-05:002007-03-19T08:59:36.960-04:00Go ahead: Buy some bordeaux. You can afford it I drove to Atlanta this weekend with two objectives in mind: One, we wanted to visit our 19-year-old son, a freshman at Morehouse College. Two, it was time for our periodic trip to the Dekalb Farmer's Market, a huge grocery store stuffed with about very sort of meat, fish, poultry, fruit and vegetable from all over the world. We like to McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1139966419508527702006-02-14T18:57:00.000-05:002006-02-14T20:20:24.430-05:00Wine with your TV dinner? Huh! I was watching the new Harrison Ford movie "Firewall" with my wife last weekend, and about a quarter of the way into the action, the ruthless thief who has held Ford's family hostage pops a TV dinner into the microwave. He took it out and turned to Ford. "Do you have any wine?" the thief asked, holding the TV dinner. Ford: "Yes, in the basement."McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1139352717653678172006-02-07T17:22:00.000-05:002006-02-07T17:51:57.670-05:00It's not champagne, but it's good enough Valentine's Day will be here pretty soon. This is one of the two days that we traditionally go in search of champagne. New Year's Eve is the other. I realize that you are trying to impress your lover when you go out and buy an expensive bottle of champagne on Valentine's Day. But unless your lover knows a lot about champagne and can detect an McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1138301594110465062006-01-26T13:55:00.000-05:002006-01-26T13:53:14.136-05:00Save time: Look for wines from the Bien Nacido vineyard Buying wine can take a lot of your spare time. You have to gather intelligence, generally using several methods: recommendations from family, friends and co-workers; reading wine columnists in newspapers, magazines, newsletters and, hopefully, online media; attending wine tastings and festivals to try out a broad range of wine. Let me McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1137780317348768312006-01-20T12:57:00.000-05:002006-01-20T13:05:17.350-05:00It's a wine party in ATL In 2005, at the last minute, I learned of the inaugural Atlanta Fine Wine Festival. I was in the city at a barbershop I frequent. As I was waiting, I picked up the local paper and saw a little item in the entertainment section: Atlanta Fine Wine festival today, it said in relevant part. Doggone. I wasn't prepared, I told myself initially. Then I asked: Which do McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1137779795229531432006-01-20T12:39:00.000-05:002006-01-20T12:56:35.240-05:00Check out this new study of wine drinkers So, which came first -- the lifestyle and the attitude, or the love of wine? The Wine Institute, an industry group out of California, has just released the results of a study it commissioned on wine drinkers. The research was done by Yankelovich and the Segmentation Company and is based on a survey of 2,442 U.S. wine consumers. It says this about wine McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1137200239786048862006-01-13T19:55:00.000-05:002006-01-20T13:08:11.996-05:00Use your digital camera to remind you of good wine Lots of wine drinkers I know have the following dilemma: Geez, I can't remember the name of that wine that I liked so much. That’s because we buy a wine or drink a wine and like it so much, but we never record the experience. Lots of wine experts say you should keep a journal, a little notebook in which you jot down the name and the year and McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1136832749437171062006-01-09T14:25:00.000-05:002006-01-09T14:23:58.843-05:00A sucker for celebrity wines I'm a sucker for wines in any way connected to celebrities. Maybe you are, too. I bought a bottle of 2003 pinot noir from a grocery store in Amelia Island, Florida, just because a painting of William Shakespeare was on the label. I'm an English major, OK, I love Shakespeare. Worse, I gave the bottle to a friend as a gift without finding out whether the McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1136241227018638462006-01-02T17:05:00.000-05:002006-01-16T14:47:39.106-05:00The heaviest part of the cooking season is over -– Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s have passed. But there’s the day-to-day cooking chores still left for all of us. And if you cook a lot of Southern food, you may not think of wine as being a good match with fare from down South. But it is. Here are a few suggestions of wine and Southern food matches. Fried chicken: This is a staple of allMcQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1134600481286790382005-12-14T17:48:00.000-05:002006-04-03T19:30:48.190-04:00It's time for industry to r-e-s-p-e-c-t women consumersIn the 1970s, the great filmmaker Orson Welles was the TV pitchman for Paul Masson wines. His intense eyes, full beard and baritone voice filled the black-and-white TV screens of America.We will sell no wine, Welles intoned, before its time.That became a very popular phrase, in part because of its simplicity. It also became popular because itMcQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1134152754976914292005-12-12T11:28:00.000-05:002007-03-27T16:24:31.250-04:00Dan Maley is an editor in our newsroom here in Macon, Georgia, and, more important, for the purposes of this blog, is a wine lover. A few notes via Dan: "Here's a suggested topic; the Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve '04 chardonnay is the first vintage of this famous budget wine to made entirely from grapes from K-J's own vineyards. It tastes GREAT and it can be had at $9.99." That $9.99 McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1133985908389859452005-12-07T18:03:00.000-05:002007-04-04T21:41:21.663-04:00Wed. Dec. 7, 2005So-so wine? Make some sangria with it If you have tasted this season’s Beaujolais nouveau, you may have come to the same conclusion I have: It’s not that good. What to do? I decided to do what I do a lot when I buy a so-so bottle of wine. Make some sangria out of it. Sangria is a great little drink to have around during the weekends – not just for party time. I used a bottle of McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18324280.post-1133739379367710502005-12-05T18:48:00.000-05:002007-01-23T03:36:22.963-05:00Monday, Dec. 5, 2005 This is my inaugural post for this blog, which I am calling Life on the vine. There is a reason I selected this title. I am a middle-age professional in the sunset of a career almost entirely devoted to newspaper journalism. Now, when I say "the sunset," I am not hinting that I plan to retire. Quite the opposite. I never plan to retire. I've been at this journalism thing McQueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04887653448148130631noreply@blogger.com1