Wine with Dinner or Dinner with Wine?

Posted on January 11, 2007 by Sonadora

I have always been a wine with dinner person. Mainly because I go to the store and plan meals and I know pretty much exactly what I’m making for dinner that week. Less stressful for me since I don’t have to come home and debate what I’m making. I also don’t find that I have the time to go to the store frequently enough to just whip up something on a whim. Then, I pick a wine to drink with the dinner from our collection.

I’ve been mulling over the idea of switching this up, at least once in a while so that my dinner is planned around my wine rather than having the wine planned around the dinner. I think I shall pick a bottle this weekend and decide a meal on what would go best with that wine.

So which one are you? Wine with dinner or vice versa?

Filed under: Misc, Wine | 7 Comments »

Blogs and Advertising

Posted on January 11, 2007 by Sonadora

Today’s Washington Post had a fairly long article about turning a profit while writing a blog. Product Reviews and Links Turn Pages into Profit.

The jist of the article describes several advertising services that connect with blogs and pay them either per click on a link or an image or pay them for a mention/review of their product. It claims that there are currently 63.2 million blogs out there with 175,000 new ones a day and suggests that there is potential to see a closer relationship between bloggers and advertisers in the future. One source estimates that there are several hundred bloggers who make their living running blogs.

An interesting point made in the article is that some of the new firms are requiring that bloggers disclose that they are being paid when they plug an item. I wonder if the same holds true for companies that provide products to bloggers, especially in the electronics industry where I’ve seen articles about companies distributing a new product to bloggers for review?

I know that I’ve seen many wine blogs that disclose they received a sample from a winery and I think that’s a good thing. I don’t know how or if getting something for free would influence your decision, but I do appreciate the transparency when reading the review.

The article is an interesting read, and I think the recognition of blogs in the mainstream media as a good advertising tool speaks to the acceptance of blogs as a legitimate source of consumer information.

Filed under: Blogs, Misc | 6 Comments »

Why Heartburn is not Conducive to Being a Wine Lover

Posted on January 11, 2007 by Sonadora

As I think I have mentioned, I have been suffering from a terrible case of heartburn. It’s been on and off for about 2 weeks and pretty much non-stop for the last week. Not fun. I finally decided to research what I could do to make it go away and I’ve decided that the solutions definetly don’t jive with being an avid wine drinker. The highlights are as follows:

1.) Don’t drink any alcohol (including wine and beer, apparently they needed to spell that out in case you thought those two weren’t included in the definition of alcohol). This would severly limit my consumption of wine and lead to an even bigger backlog of bottles that need to be consumed. Oh, plus I wouldn’t have much to post about then, would I?

2.) No eating or drinking within several hours of going to bed. Well, this would either make me incredibly drunk really fast since I’d have to drink my part of the bottle in record time over dinner (which I would have to eat alone since several hours before bed puts me eating around 6 and Matt isn’t home by then) or it would mean I only get a glass from the bottle or I just stop eating and drinking, which while it may help with number 6, might just kill me.

3.) Do not bend over. Exactly how am I supposed to pick up cases of wine if I can’t bend over? Which leads me to number 4.

4.) No lifting of heavy objects. See response to number 3.

5.) No exercising. Wine has calories and I drink a lot of it. My life plans do not include weighing 5,000 pounds, which might happen if I keep consuming wine and stop exercising.

6.) Lose weight. Anyone see a problem with this one when combined with number 5? Yeah, I thought so.

I thought of more this morning:

7.) Take antacids. There is no wine that pairs well with Tums. While we may sometimes taste chalk in our wines, I really don’t think anyone suggests actually eating chalk. Especially with wine. Seriously, have you ever had these things?

8.) Don’t wear fitted waist clothes. Apparently any pressure on your waist area increases heartburn. Somehow, I think I might get fired if I showed up to work in sweatpants or sans clothes and then I wouldn’t have any money with which to buy wine.

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