Another month, another hundred opportunities to eat and drink.

One of the great pleasures of greeting another month is of course the prospect of once again partaking of some of life's simplest pleasures: spending time with friends, eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, and so on. I've got most of The Confusion to finish reading (so far, it's blowing my mind - a fantastic novel!), the weather's warm enough to start busting out the white wine, and I'm getting on a plane for Europe in two weeks.

On a strictly commercial basis, every new month generally means new sales, new wine releases, new foods to try, and so on. As per usual, I've wasted away my lunch break today having a look at the new Fearless Flyer [hm, Brian, looks like they have some new, cheap Chilean wines for $3.49 in Washington, probably less in CA... the merlot/carmenere seems particularly appealing], cursing Pete's for never updating their Web site on time, checking out stuff at Esquin even though I don't like shopping there, etc.

I was v. amused to see this today [it's on sale for $8.99 at Esquin]:



Wonder what that's like? Looks like I'll have to go to Esquin to find a bottle of this stuff. I imagine it's not bad, plus it's from the 2002 vintage, which means I have an excuse to buy some (after all, we spent most of 2002 in Australia; as a result, I've been hoarding lots of '02 bottles at home).

One of my coworkers just returned from Walla Walla this morning; he spent the weekend there drinking tasting wines with his friends and family. One of them particularly stuck out in his mind as being good value and especially tasty: the 2001 Glen Fiona syrah. What was really funny is that he couldn't remember the name of the place, but I guessed it based on my suspicion that he'd know a good wine were he to taste it. Me, I've never tried GF wines, but I do have two bottles at home aging away. Going on Brian's recommendation (as well as the fact that their syrah is cofermented with 10% viognier), I'll probably have to set aside budget this month for some of their 2001 as well, even though frankly I'm overbought. But what the hell, who knows, might as well, huh?