Kreativ-Blogger Award

Kreativ-Blogger Award

Rules of Conduct: Bloggers who win the award must complete the following steps:
1. Thank the blogger who gave you the award and provide a link.
2. List 7 interesting things about yourself that your readers might find interesting
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers, provide links, and let them know!

I was nominated for this award by The Sunday Bottles, a superb blog with a weekly report on food and wine. The blog’s authors are Craig and Megan, brother- and sister-in-law. They live in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (how cool is that?!). Craig focuses on the writing, Megan focuses on the photography (which is spectacular), and they both (along with their spouses, Cara and Rene) focus on wine….and food. Their posts carry with them a tremendous amount of wit (you will find yourself laughing, I promise).

Their blog is fantastic. It is very creative, entertaining, and educational. And, it’s about wine!
Thank you, Megan and Craig.

 

Seven interesting things about myself that readers might find interesting. This is tough.

1) I have traveled a lot for work. We’re talking Sydney, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Beijing once, London so many times the doormen at the hotel know me, and here and there throughout Europe. Domestically, there has been a lot all over the country, mostly large metropolitan cities.

2) My maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Spain. My grandfather was from the town of Oviedo and my grandmother from Santander. This is where my love of Rioja comes from (although neither one was a wine drinker…..).

3) My fingers are double-jointed.

4) I love fresh oysters. I once ate 3 dozen in one sitting at the Hog Island Oyster Bar at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

5) I play chess (running out of interesting things).

6) My favorite color is blue (really running out of interesting things).

7) I was born in Manhattan, but never lived there.

So, if you see a Spanish-looking guy with a blue shirt, playing Chess with Friends on his iPhone, while eating oysters and drinking a lot of wine, that might be me.

 

Limiting blogs I would like to name to seven is difficult, but here they are:

1) Talk-A-Vino – A super wine blog run by Anatoli Levine. Anatoli is very knowledgeable about wines in general. He has taken wine classes, worked as a sommelier, and passed the initial level of the Guild of Master Sommeliers. He has tasted everything from ultra high-end wines to weekly discount specials. He has an eye for value wines and “as long as your definition of “good” at least partially depends on value, or QPR, we will do just fine.” In addition to posts on wines, he provides a “Weekly Wine Quiz”, which always contains an interesting, often lesser-known, fact. The blog is informative, educational, and fun.

2) Paprika & Pinot – This is a great food and wine blog. Molly, the blog’s author, posts some delicious recipes and, of course, recommends a wine to go with them. There are also occasional wine reviews and notes on winery visits. Molly’s wine awareness can be attributed to the fact her “extraordinary husband built a wine cellar in our house four years ago” and that she has “two super cool aunts who live in Sonoma and are always up for some wine tasting”. (I want those aunts!) It’s a great blog with some neat recipes.

3) The Adventures of Pagan Kitty – So there is this cat, well….actually, it is a picture of a cat, well….actually, it is a cat on the cover of a get well card. PSsquared and SugarFreeThoughts are the blogs authors. Each of them has their own blog as well. Back to the cat. PK travels around and attends all sorts of events. Everything from a niece’s graduation party to mowing the lawn to eating pizza. There are pictures of PK at all these events. This is just whacked. Oh, and did I mention, PK loves wine…. If you are looking to laugh hysterically, this is the place.

4) Rantings of An Amateur Chef – This is a recipe blog run by Chef Pat Geyer. He comes up with a new recipe every day. He also has a guest blogger named Maggie, who does a lot of baking. Most of the recipes are fairly simple and easy to prepare. All types of cuisine, all types of dishes, and basic ingredients make this blog a good source for some new ideas.

5) Whine and Cheers For Wine – This wine blog is run by Ernest. Ernest passed the first level of WSET earlier this year. More recently, he became a Wine Steward at a Winn Dixie store in Miramar, Florida. He is great at wine assessment and has a sharp focus on value wines. His posts on the wines he has tasted are always informative and include many lesser known names. He has some great recommendations.

6) ZeroHedge – This blog covers the global financial markets in ways you won’t see in mainstream media. Conspiracy theories, fraudulent activities, market manipulation, they have them all. They offer many explanations and take a cold, realistic look at where things are headed. It helps to have some wine with you if you plan to read their work.

7) Vini Buoni – This wine blog covers many wines I haven’t heard of. Julian, the site’s author, was born and raised in Munich, Germany, but now lives in Bologna, Italy. His posts are brief, but descriptive, focusing mainly on, but not exclusively, Italian wines. He has also offered notes on summer cocktails (see: Rossini & Bellini). Like many wine bloggers, he has an eye for value. Like me, Julian appears to drink an awful lot of wine.

This was a very difficult list to compile. There are so many great blogs that I could not include. My thanks again to The Sunday Bottles.

Cheers!
NJ Vinoman