Wow! This has been one heck of a week in wine news. The juiciest news comes by way of Wine & Spirits Daily regarding Amazon giving up their piece of the wine pie. It's a longer read but I think it's worth checking out!
Ever experienced a tin-foilesque aftertaste having paired red wine with fish? There is new information this week about why red wine and fish are not such a great pairing. Read more here.
Then, in case you missed this year's Boston Globe Plonkapalooza, check out this year's top wine picks!
For those of you looking to stretch your legs and travel the wine world a bit, consider joining Bon Vivant Wine Company (Randolph, MA) as they wine and dine with you at some of Long Island's best vineyards on November 21. Tickets are available here.
What do you think of Amazon's decision?
Maybe you’ve started to make the official fall Grand Wine Tasting rounds at local shops in/around town this month. Have you had the unique opportunity to taste some high end stuff? Or have these fine wines merely adorned the shelves behind the pouring pros, catching your eye and your curiosity: what makes a wine command a $100+ price tag?
Pop on over to 
Got wine? Got a good cause? What about an insured nose (Robert Parker's) and debate about its efficacy - or at least the question of mind over matter? Yes, yes; it has been another nerdy week in wine!
Biz Stone and his partner in crime at Twitter are first to bat in my lineup this Friday. They are teaming up with the folks at Crushpad and Room to Read to bring 
Ever grown particularly attached to a particular vintage of a particular wine? The good (and sometimes sad) news about wine is it is often changing! It is not a genre where you can rest on your laurels; the juice will run out – and the best ones often do sooner than later. Fortunately, this reality is part of what makes wine romantic. Nostalgia is a big part of the wine equation!
Pop on over to 
We're keeping things closer to home and sticking to domestic hap's in the wine world this week.
First up... it's harvest time! And the reports from Napa are look'n good. Moderate summer temps have kept viticulturists and vintners happy with easy, early-ish picking. Not only are sugar levels lower (which is a constant struggle in California) but yields are manageable. (In a down economy, there's always bound to be more juice available than consumers demand. This year there might actually be a fairly happy balance on that front!) Check out what some vintners are saying via 
October poses a cliche opportunity to pick truly wicked wines. But rather than picking “scary” (seriously out of the ordinary) wines for this month’s line up, we’ve gone a different route. October's wine picks reflect a greater need for something familiar and comforting in a climate-changing time. Better yet, they serve as an escape from the same-old-same, just in case you’ve gotten too set in your back to school routine or forgot to take a vacation over the summer. October is a month to mix it up! And so we have.
Pop on over to 
Got Graham? Or have you at least tasted one (or more) of the Bonny Doon wines? What did you think? My experience tells me most winemakers are a bit bizarre - the level and specific style of bizarreness being unique to each, of course. But I do think there is something super special about the California bread of crazy winemaker. Yeah, they are brilliant; but they push The Envelope more knowingly or deliberately somehow (whereas folks from Washington or Oregon, Spain, France and the like operate as they are, just bizarre creatures making wine).
Joe Roberts, aka 1WineDude, 
One of the simplest pleasures in life is bubbles. Thank goodness they are all around us, from soap, to a delicate “Top Chef” food foam, to the beach! Remember being a kid and blowing them? You couldn’t help but smile every time you created one, and the bigger, the better. Then there was going to the beach, wading through the foam a crashed wave leaves behind and attempting to capture the remnants in your cupped hands. I still relish the smell of the ocean, transmitted as the waves crash and the mist gets picked up and sent to my nose....
But are these attributes beneficial for the enjoyment of sparkling wine, also?
Good news! This week there was much more wine fodder to catch my fancy. So, let's jump right in!
First, from the tasting "room": 
For some reason, despite the tremendous talent in the wine trade that abounds, Boston and its surrounding communities seem to lack a clear understanding of what a wine bar is - and execute on it. For me a wine bar is:
1) A more intimate establishment or lounge where an ample offering of fine wines are available by the glass as well as the bottle;