I am blessed with an eclectic circle of wonderful friends and family. My family is especially cool. Because of last week’s blog, I need to publicly apologize to my younger sister, Sheri, for portraying her as a “douche bag” (her words) as a kid. She was actually a pretty cool kid and has always been my partner in crime and favorite girl on the planet, except the time she puked on my back when we were riding double on a horse. That was gross.
My life has been a bit crazy lately – I was laid off from my job in May and have had some personal ups and downs. My friends and family have been incredibly supportive and loving.
This particular piece features my friend Veronique Raskin, my own personal Joan of Arc and founder of www.theorganicwinecompany.com. She’s French, she’s smart, she imports amazing organic wine from all over the world, she loves good wine and cheese and she loves me.
We met last year. She was gathering up journalists to go to the Millésime Bio World Organic Wine Fair (see my earlier blog about the fair) and she picked me as one of the journalists. Yay! It was an amazing, life-changing trip and she and I have become good friends because of it.
When I am struggling with life’s issues, I tend to shut down and “go into my cave,” meaning that I don’t reach out to my friends. Veronique, not to be deterred by my radio silence, called me last week and said, “What the ‘ell is up with you? I haven’t heard from you in three months.” All said in a slightly annoyed, but lovely, French accent. I explained my situation and she forgave me for my brief absence from the scene. I still owe her some St. André cheese, though.
Veronique got me all fired up about organic wines. There is a world of wonderful wines out there, sans the bad stuff (pesticides, herbicides, preservatives and more) produced by passionate people. I had the pleasure of tasting a bunch of them in France and with Veronique here in northern California. She sells exclusively organic wines on her website, www.theorganicwinecompany.com and they are surprisingly affordable and delicious too! That said, with Veronique in mind, I decided to review an organic wine just about every week.
This week’s wine is only $24.99 and would be a bargain at twice the price! It is a 2009 Guy Chaumont Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise. It is 100% Pinot Noir, and just may be the perfect red wine for summertime! It’s light and fruity enough to serve slightly chilled on hot days, but exhibits sexy, complex aromas and flavors of cranberry, red cherry, hillside wildflowers, baking spices with a slap of leather. Yum!
I’m gonna go drink some now! Next week – more chatter about friends, family and of course, wine. Cheers till then!
