Hallelujah! Grapecat has decided to make my Christmas wishes come true…kinda. Instead of giving me the vineyard in Napa Valley that was at the top of my list, she’s taking me to visit a few. But, for an east-coaster like me, it’s close enough Given that we know next to nothing about Napa and Sonoma, we thought we’d put out a call for advice to the WineLog community. So… here’s the short list of decisions that are currently overwhelming us.

I don’t think I’ve ever had two varietals from the same vineyard that both exceeded my expectations, but in the last two weeks I have had two from Chalone Vineyards in Monterey County California that were excellent. It all started a few months ago when I invited some friends to my place for an Australian Shiraz showdown. We enjoyed a couple of them so much that it started a (semi sober) debate over whether a California Syrah could be as good as a Barossa Shiraz. So, I did what any good wine lover would do… I went out and bought a slew of Syrahs and launched my own informal investigation. Brilliant!

Well… it’s the holiday season again. For many of us that means lots of shopping and wondering if the recipients of those gifts will like what we are getting them. This year I decided to make it easy on my friends and family by providing them with this musical list. I’ll spare you the agony of the first 11 days and get right down to the good stuff. Hummmmmmmm………

Hello winelog world. I’m grapescott, a long-time wine lover who has recently decided to get a bit more serious about my seriously fun hobby. The first step in getting more serious, for me, was to start keeping a record of everything I drink. For me that meant creating my wine blog at www.grapescott.com. Soon after I started doing that I found out about winelog.net and started using it to create my own wine log. One of the things I really enjoy about keeping notes in my wine log is that it allows me to learn as I go by seeing what other wine lovers think of the same wines I have tried… very cool