All About Wine in Sonoma Wine Country

There are millions of places you can pick up a bottle of wine, from the winery itself down to Safeway. (Um except if you're in Pennsylvania where you can only buy it on the black market or in a designated liquor store before 9pm Monday through Saturday. You can't even buy a simple, crappy light beer at the corner 7-11. Surely there are other backwards places like this to warn you about but I've only had the joy of experiencing the Philadelphia Booze Buying Olympic Marathon where I finally took the gold.) The selections anywhere can be overwhelming so we'll help narrow it down for you.
When buying a bottle of wine there are two things to consider:

1) What's the occasion?
2) How much money you have in your pocket.

Let's look at some possible wine situations.

Possible Wine Occasion #1: Drinking wine at home alone.
Easy. Just get some wine you had before somewhere or something familiar looking that's under 10 bucks. It can be hard to tell by looking at the wine bottle what's inside, so if you care what color it is, narrow your selection down to the bottles you can see through. Red wine gives me a headache unless it's organic so I'd probably get a white in a clear bottle with a cute label that I had at a friends once.

Possible Wine Occasion #2: Drinking wine at home with friends you like (and some you don't).

If you're buying wine to drink at home with friends or significant others, first determine who these people are. If you know them well and they are cool, grab any bottle between 15 and 30 bucks with a cool label. Grab two if you really like them a lot.
If you don't know them well and want to impress them, just buy your wine someplace other than a grocery store where you can ask for a recommendation. That way, chances are good that it will be decent, and, if the wine sucks (which it probably won't because they all taste the same), you can say "Hmph! That guy at the Foo Foo Chalet apparently knows nothing about wine.) It's fun to announce ahead of pouring that this wine came with "An excellent recommendation". Everyone will usually mumble something like "Yes, it has a nice bouquet" or some crappy crap like that.
If all else fails, just buy a Cabernet (again with a cool label) and tell everyone "This is my favorite Cab!" and you'll sound like you know something.
Worst, worst possible case, go to Robert Parker and see what he has to say. Then, repeat what he says in your own words so it sounds like you are the wine expert. You might actually intimidate those around you enough to make them admire your wine choice. Even if it's from the dollar store. Yes, you can even buy wine at the dollar store.

Possible Wine Occasion #3: Bringing wine to your book club meeting.
This can be tough. Your wine choice will be scrutinized here like nowhere else. You must not bring an overdone, trendy, unoriginal, trite bottle of wine. Your choice must be the coolest, newest thing. Here my friend, is my best advice and I guarantee you won't go wrong.
Buy the most unusual bottle with The. Coolest. Label. And..... Do NOT look for it in the Safeway wine aisle. That's it! The secret is, it's all about the label. Oops, cat's out of the bag now. Spank me.

$$$$

Money Issues

Consideration Numero Two-O: How much money you have on you.

(The following advice applies to any of the possible scenarios listed above.)

Here you'll have to do a little math. First you need to determine why you will be drinking wine. Then you'll need to find the ratio of how much you want to enjoy the taste of the wine and how messed up or "relaxed" you want to get. If the taste ratio comes out higher, than get the most expensive one you can afford at that moment. Don't worry about the car payment that's due in a few days or how much cash you'll need for lunch at the pub tomorrow. Spend all you have in your pocket. If you have a good one, use your credit card if you must. In all truthfulness however, it won't actually matter how much you spend, but you're taste buds will psychologically think it tastes "lovely dahling" because of the high price. And besides, after the first glass, it doesn't really matter does it?

If getting smashed is the big winner, just hunt for the wine label with the highest alcohol content you can find. 17% would be a definite taker.

How to be a Wine Snob
See Robert Parker

Wine Tasting
Um, we've been tine wasting all day. I mean wine wasting. I mean tasting all day and we'll have to get back to you later on this. Rill stesearching. I mean, rill researching. Wait. Nevermind. Stay tuned.

Wine Pairing
There can be a lot of things to say about wine pairing but after years of practice, we have developed the Diva Wine Pairing Plan. It goes a little something like this:

Diva Wine Pairing Plan
Pair red wine with food.
Mate white wine with dessert.
Don't drink cute pink wine ever.

Wine Making

At the moment all I can say about wine making is this. Do you ever wonder what happens to the juice when the wine maker shows up late to work again with a wretched hangover from too much drinking because he got dumped by his hot girlfriend?