The Heart Laid Bare (This is a piece I wrote for the monthly Newsletter {July 2005, online at www.kermitlynch.com} from Kermit Lynch, Wine Merchant. I probably buy more wine from Kermit than from any other source, and I’ve enjoyed Kermit’s writing for a very long time. In recent years he’s also published a number of […]

Ship Of Fools Thirty years ago a dear friend of mine moved from Philadelphia to Chitina, Alaska. At the time, it seemed like a pretty dramatic decision, and, now that I’ve spent a week in the southeastern portion of that extraordinary part of this earth, it feels, in a way, even more dramatic. Alaska seems […]

Good Things From The Garden (The Terroir Blues) CK Mondavi used to have a slogan: “Every year’s a Vintage year in California!” Like most marketing slogans, it seemed to say quite a bit without really saying anything at all. The thought behind the slogan became the cornerstone of California’s first real efforts to authenticate itself, […]

Jack O’Diamonds (I Know You Of Old) The notorious Guy du Vin (aka Dave Holstrum, the dynamic and articulate force behind the wine programs at a handful of Portland, Oregon’s finest dining establishments) recently took part in a winetasting featured on the evening news at one of Portland’s network TV stations. Dave was one of […]

Whiskey Before Breakfast(And other songs of the itinerant…) So many times when I go out on the road to sell wine it means rising in darkness to catch a flight in order to reach my destination by dinnertime, even if it’s only from Oakland to Columbus, Ohio. I made exactly such a journey a few […]

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood A new wineshop opened recently, just a few minutes walk from my front door. The shop is called Vintage Berkeley, and, appropriately, it’s on Vine Street, just across the street from the place I walk to each morning for espresso. Interestingly, Vintage Berkeley is situated in the old East Bay […]

Original Sin I think it might’ve been Hallowe’en morning when I first noticed the persimmon tree in my neighbor’s yard, its dazzling orange globes suspended amid its broad and whispery leaves. It was such a beautiful morning anyway, and I was on my way, on foot, up towards Codornices Park and the canyons beyond, from […]

Harmonicas and Virgins At the end of every harvest I’m as changed as the color of the hardwood trees in New England. Every trace of any capacity I once held to bring any enterprise to fruition has been spent, and I’m ready to fall. Ready to spin out over the graying and blustery landscape, to […]

I Can’t Help It If I’m Lucky In March of this year, after nearly three weeks of unseasonably hot weather, during which time the temperatures in Berkeley averaged more than 85 degrees Fahrenheit (and the wine country, pretty much throughout the state, experienced temperatures in the mid to upper 90s), I had a dream in […]

Way Up North In December of 1964, the year my father died, the Salmon River overran the narrow confines of its banks, and washed away the old Langford’s Store, near Somes Bar, along with the low-lying cabins Mrs. Langford had rented over the years to folks like my grandparents, and my parents, people who found […]