©Gary Larson ​At some point in the past I read a piece about what's called the Marginal Utility Theory. It supposedly has to do with economics. The article explained the theory as follows: Imagine you have two farmers. Farmer A has three cows. Farmer B has 100 cows. If you give farmer A another cow, it's a big deal. After all, you've just increased his herd by 33%. But if you give farmer B another cow, it doesn't mean much because you've only increased his herd by a measly 1%. The bottom line is that the value of something can be relative to the recipient. At least that's the way I interpret ..read more

My tasting book is finally “live.” If you're dangerously excited by that prospect and don't want to bother with all the descriptive text below, you can just go to the following link on Amazon and order a copy or two: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1955750475/​   Otherwise, here's some pertinent information about the book. It's called “Message in the Bottle: A Guide To Tasting Wine.” The genesis of the book goes back over a decade. At that time in late 2011,  I had just stepped away from an Education Director position with the Master Sommeliers. I’d been in the role for nine years, durin ..read more

Message in the Bottle: A Guide to Tasting Wine, by Tim Gaiser, MS This year's holiday reading roundup begins with a shameless bit of self-promotion about my new tasting book. I've been working on it for over 10 years, and the pandemic finally gave me an opportunity to finish it. Message in the Bottle is for anyone who wants to learn how to taste wine. But it's also filled with strategies that someone who wants to become a professional taster needs to learn. Students on a wine certification track, aka Jedi Knights in training, will find it to be an invaluable resource. Otherwise, you might as ..read more

As Frenchmen go, he wasn’t exactly Maurice Chevalier or Gérard Depardieu. But what he lacked in charm or good looks he more than made up for in expertise in smelling and tasting spirits--and I will forever be in his debt. I only wish I had learned his name so I could have thanked him.   It was spring of 1989. At the time, my wife Carla was pregnant with our daughter Maria, who would be born at the end of August. For the next few months we would live in a stylish sixth floor apartment in the City on Lombard St. at Polk, with spectacular views of the Bay, Alcatraz, and Russian Hill. Howeve ..read more

Though it may surprise you, I’ve only been to Paris twice. Both times were on the same trip in the fall of 1987 when my wife Carla and I went to Europe together for the first time. We stayed in the City of Lights at the beginning and end of our trek. Never having previously set foot on French soil, much less Paris, I utterly geeked out on art museums and cathedrals. Carla quickly had her fill of both, so we often split up for several hours at a time while I continued to gawk at incredible art in the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and other museums.   We also saw a myriad of Parisian sights toget ..read more

Many reading this post will clearly remember their first restaurant job. Mine was bussing tables and washing dishes at the now long defunct Uncle John’s Pancake House in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was the summer of 1971 and I had just finished my sophomore year of high school. I was 16 at the time and my goal of working for the man was to save enough coin to buy my first professional trumpet. Truth be told, it wasn’t my first job. That job would have been the summer before when my older brother Tom and I chopped cotton for a week on my Grandma’s farm. I’m not sure whose idea it was to enlis ..read more

I’m a big fan of the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. As of late, it feels like we’re living it. Yes, I know it’s not February (yet), but it seems like we’ve been stuck in pandemic mode forever. However, I still take comfort in the fact that we can always hide in plain sight with a good book. With that in mind, here are over a dozen recommendations of books I’ve read this past year. Happy holidays and enjoy! The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life, by Boyd Varty​ Boyd Varty is South African and an actual lion tracker by profession. He's also a certified life coach, TED Talk guy, and lecturer ..read more

Ca. 1959: Grandma with my brother Tom (left) and sister Tina. Many of my earliest memories from childhood, before we moved from the South Texas tropics to the high desert of New Mexico, are images of my maternal Grandma Wade’s farm. It was a sprawling 2,000-acre expanse of cotton fields that surrounded her house, several barns holding farm equipment, a machine shop, and multiple garages. A paved semi-circular driveway went around the house, linking to Farm Road 1, which led to the nearby village of La Villa (population 500). Towering ebony trees, filled with nesting birds during the spring ..read more

It was April of 2001 and my second trip to Germany. I had been there the year before with the same importer. During that first trip we traversed through most of the wine regions in the country for over a week, visiting as many as four wineries a day. Lest you think a trip like this is a picnic, let me point out that tasting over 400 young high-acid Rieslings in eight days is utterly brutal on one’s teeth and gums. After returning, I had to reschedule cleaning my teeth for a couple of months. Otherwise, my dentist—and dental hygienist—would have been appalled. The scolding would have been lege ..read more

Recently I read an online article about glassware. I learned that during the pandemic last year Americans drank 14% more than the previous year. No surprise given the stress of shelter in place and what with everyone always being home. I also learned that Americans purchased more wine online last year and, not surprisingly, more wine glasses than ever. The article then goes on to quote several industry professionals about their personal glassware choices. One mentioned that they drank wine out of small mason pint jars at home. Another admitted to using old McDonald’s glassware found at a thri ..read more