" Edie, you love Cabernet Franc. She was right. My wine irie was kicking in and I would be able to embrace the moment and forgive the superficial. Once it hits the lips, I could befriend anyone."

" I drink Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does. How important is it to cite whom you quote? Why does it seem that everything great has been said before, the best wines of fifty years ago are still the benchmark, music cannot overtake highlights of the past and connection is something to grasp tighter daily as we drift apart? So many things, but there is one question I really need to ask."

" I opened my birth year of Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac. The most classics of classics. Extra classic is what I am. Why do I stray from myself? If I stay close to me, I am happy and treat people well. When I stray, I am mean and judgmental and hard on the world, which sets all humanity back. We cannot change the world. We can change ourselves and that is the contribution I want to drink tonight."

" The moment I learned structure, wine reached new heights. So many things can smell like the first day of school or soccer practice. Structure never lies. Acid and tannin are the bones of wine, and the bones of life are honesty and expressiveness."

Queenlike golden hue. As wooly as it comes, it wraps me in a sweater hiding my true emotions from the world. Just me and it, unctuous and enveloping. Waves of texture allowing my dreams to unfold within. No one to witness the single tear rolling down my cheek at the understated beauty. Autumn breeze flowing through an apple orchard in fall, the faintest whisper of fruit among the petrichor. A poem I don’t fully understand but makes me grateful to be alive. A cloud-like aftertaste brings me back to the San Francisco sky and reality.

Le Rocher des Violettes ‘Touche-Mitaine’ Montlouis-sur-Loire

" Spitting one too few times at my last stop and feeling the loneliness rise up and begin to strangle me. Slipping in the fog. I put my earbuds in and played my Cloudy Champagne Day playlist on Spotify. I stopped into a corner grocery store was shocked to find Kumeu River in the dusty set. The screw cap made for quick and easy access."

" With that, I put my dirty bare feet in my Birkenstocks and walked softly across the wood slatted floor. It was midsummer but I could feel myself slipping and sliding in the snow. Wind and water. Flat Champagne after a day out selling, tasting with accounts that took my appointment with no intention of buying. Of hanging my wine bags over my Vespa adding another layer at the five o’clock hour as the fog rolled in."