With summer in full swing there’s no better drink to sip by the pool than sangria. Filled with fruit, it seems less “boozy” and perhaps slightly “healthy”, so if you start drinking it before Happy Hour there seems to be less shame and guilt involved. Believe me the fruit only masks the alcohol, but who cares? It’s a drink I find hard to resist.
While I always have wine in the house, I am not a big fruit lover. Sure, if someone else brings it all bright and juicy and already cut up, I’ll generally eat my fair share, but I’m more attracted to the “idea” of it than its physical reality. Plus, I’m more a cheesy/salty person. Sweets of any kind just don’t float my boat.
After about a decade of studying and drinking wine, I've become the
de facto "expert" amongst our group of friends. Which is to say I've
read more wine books, taken more classes and wine tasted in more
regions than them, but what I've learned is just the tip of the wine
iceberg. That being said, since I have this website, I get asked a lot
of questions about wine, but there are two that always seem to come up
with the answers usually engendering surprise. 
The email was very cryptic: “The Blindfold Dinner, April 24, 2012, at Osteria Mamma”. There wasn’t even a time, let alone an explanation. But still, how could we resist? After all, Osteria Mamma is our favorite Italian restaurant and the email is from Filippo, one of Mamma’s two sons who I became friends with first while taking an Italian Wine Specialist course and then from endless dinners at their restaurant. I hit the “reply” key on the email and write “Peggy and I will be there. What time?”
They say the eyes are the window to a person's soul, but I disagree. I'm pretty sure it's the hair. Seriously.
I don't know about you but when Christmas is in the air, it's time for my favorite, favorite drink.....