Sunday February 4, 2018 is Super Bowl Sunday when the 52nd Super Bowl decides which team,  New England Patriots or  Philadelphia Eagles will be the league champion for the 2017 NFL season. Super Bowl LII will be held at the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and you can bet it will be cold.

Super Bowl Sunday is the one football game that many non-football fans watch. It’s the footballs social event of the year (unless you are in high school and then maybe it is the big game between cross town rivals like Buena and Ventura here).

For non-football types who are watching the game to be social, highlights will likely be Pink performing the national anthem of the United States, Leslie Odom Jr. singing “America the Beautiful” and, in his third times a charm, Justin Timberlake is headlining the halftime show (in 2001, he performed with NSYNC, and in 2004 in an unforgettable moment with Janet Jackson )

So what should you include in your Super Bowl spread that will keep everyone super good and warm?

How about pulled pork paired with a wine that uses bourbon or whiskey barrels for part of the aging process?

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In advance of March’s Women’s History Month and in light of the recent website and project by Amy Bess Cook on Women Owned Wineries in Sonoma, the Wine Pairing Weekend group is focusing on women in the wine Industry with an emphasis on wineries owned by women and on women who are winemakers!

To warm us up for welcoming women owned wineries and women winemakers, and to celebrate my birthday, Sue and I opened up two wines by a pioneer in both areas: Sandra Oldfield who recently retired as CEO and head winemaker at Tinhorn Creek in Oliver, British Columbia. Keep reading to learn about how to participate along with the deal, the wines, and the meal plus more about WOW in Sonoma! Continue reading →

In this before fire photo by George Rose, Paradise Ridge shows Sonoma LOVE with this sculpture from Burning Man. Check out George’s new book “VINEYARD Sonoma County,”

The fallout from the devastating 2017 fires in California will be long lasting. Here in Ventura County, the Thomas Fire is FINALLY 100% contained at 281,893 acres. We now sift through the rubble; I spent most of Friday morning with a friend at her house which was destroyed. It was the first time she had been there in daylight. Continue reading →

Well, here it is: the first week of 2018.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!

Here on Wine Predator, we’re taking a moment to reflect on what went down in 2017 and what’s up in 2018.

According to my calculations, I published 108 blog posts in 2017.

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