I met with my friend Mac earlier this year to help him with a challenge he had set for himself; hold 100 coaching conversations in 100 days. He managed 57, which is no small feat, and I count myself lucky to be among them. What stuck with me were 2 questions: 1) what are your biggest goals/priorities … Continue reading Reflections of 2016

With the weather dropping well below freezing, it finally began to feel a bit more like Christmas. Stacy and mom descended on New York for some week-before-Christmas wedding dress shopping on what has got to be the coldest day ever. My baby sister Stacy is getting married June 10th on a vineyard in Virginia, and … Continue reading Christmas Week 

The BK Hotel Delmano Sherry night surpassed lofty expectations, yet was somehow promptly followed by another evening plucked from a Woody Allen movie. Intellectual, unabashedly New York, and full of a cast of characters... Abe being the rockstar he is, assembled a dozen or so of us for an examination of Nebbiolo.  Each flight was served … Continue reading Followed by Another One of Those Nights 

Tuesday night was a night 3 months in the making. Robin, one of my favorite-ist distributors (IPO), and I have been talking about getting over to Hotel Delmano in Williamsburg for ages but couldn't get our acts together, but finally the stars alined and we got it done. Robin, Abe-my new winemaker friend- and I descended … Continue reading One of those nights 

I've been debating what to write about for the past few days and haven't really come up with anything of note, so this is more of a bit of me doing something (anything) instead of actually having a point. Who knows, maybe I'll come to one. I'm trying to get away from "here's what I … Continue reading Baby Steps.

This year was a tempered down version of my past 7 Thanksgivings, but also one of the best. Being an ex-pat always meant 3-4 turkey spreads: one the Saturday before (friendsgiving and usually the largest at ~30 people), Thursday the day of (bests include dinner at Nina's and dinner at Christina's), Friday night (Boda's annual … Continue reading Thanksgiving

After 16 days on the road in Australia I have a few new thoughts on the place. More than just a few, in fact. #1 Wine Australia did a spectacular job of putting together a program for 10 geeky wine nerds. Between the logistics of just getting us around, to having everything on time and … Continue reading Aussie Take Aways

Day 2 in McLaren Vale started with a mucho necessary 10 mile run to the ocean, breakfast, and a little 10 am speed wine dating. We broke into pairs and met with one producer at a time to hear about what's shaking in the world of McLaren Vale Shiraz. Australian Shiraz is not my favorite … Continue reading Shiraaaz 

An early morning flight, diverted drug bust (ask James), and bus ride later these 10 winos hit the ground running at the Australia Wine Research Institute in Adelaide. We had a fascinating seminar and tasting with Peter Godden where he highlighted some of the recent work of AWRI, which is one of the world's foremost wine … Continue reading McLaren Vale

After a pretty brutal 25+ hour slog from (delayed) New York to  (delayed) LA to Sydney, I made it to Australia and quickly met one of my fellow travelers, Doug, a Master of Wine based in Kansas City. We went to our very lovely hotel downtown and then met the rest of our group so … Continue reading Right-O