Juno Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2006

I really like this wine from South Africa. It has a wonderful nose of black currants, camphor, sour cherry and earth. In the mouth the wine is lightly tannic with excellent acidity and good length. A nice concentration of dark fruit, spices, savory herbs and a finish of dark chocolate. Overall this was an impressive wine at its price point, about $11. And the label is awesome! Available only at Catavinos.

My score: 87

A Dream for a Country

Another day, and I’m at home, my beautiful home, the place I’ve arrived at, after so many years. I say arrived, because there isn’t anywhere else to go. At thirty-seven, all I want is to sit with a glass of good red wine in the presence of people who have nothing left to prove. An oakwood fire doesn’t hurt, logs crackling in the fire pit, kids running loose in the back yard while the desert city begins its long slow journey into dreamland.

A sweet dream for a city. A sweet dream for these people who still care, who get up every day and go to work, knowing as they do that the plan is outdated, that the goals don’t fit any more, and that the whole damn situation is a far cry from where it ought to be.

A dream for a country, waking up from its dream.

The New America

After the inspired and deeply moving election of Barack Obama, I feel an unexpected sense of sadness. This sadness is coupled with a feeling of loss for an America I grew up with, an America embraced by my family, an America that was already on its last legs decades ago. With Obama’s election we turn the corner decisively on this old America, a place of cowboys and indians, good old boys and pickup trucks. These ‘good old’ Americans will wander in circles, dazed, not knowing what hit them. Did anyone get the number on that Prius? What the hell is a Prius, anyway? One thing is for certain: the old Americans are fading away. They do not understand, nor will they ever understand, what happened, and that is a tragedy. The worst of them will rail against Obama and waste their energy trying to tear him down. The best will look inward, perhaps with great discomfort, in an attempt to understand who or what they have become. They will begin to sense the reasons for their irrelevance, and how change must not only come to Obama’s America, but also to the America they believed in, an America that exists today only as a caricature of what it once was, for sale in cowboy magazines or discount furniture shops.

A note to all you so-called ‘new’ Americans out there:

Do not think unkindly of the old Americans and their conservative ways. Now more than ever they need someone to lift them up, someone to let them know how to move forward into this brave new America. It is your job, new American, to help them understand, and above all to help them see that the currency of this land isn’t money, but love--love for everyone--and that this love is unconditional. This unconditional love cannot be bought, sold or voted away. It is the promise of Obama’s America, a promise two hundred years in the making, and no matter what happens, nothing will ever be the same again.