Nancy and I haven't been alone since before the kids were born. That's eight years. We committed to getting away together this year however, as we passed 1 in June. Since I wasn't making my usual Fall trip to the Rhône, I was in need of something hearty - where red wine and the scent of burning autumnal leaves in the air would fill the gap.

Posted by 1 Let's talk about California Nebbiolo. Yes, I really mean it, California Nebbiolo. Nebbiolo in California certainly isn't a burning topic of conversation on anybody's mind. A search of WineSpectator.com's wine ratings database only shows 1 of Nebbiolo-labeled wines from California.

More wine matching advice, I would wager, gets dispensed in the week before Thanksgiving than in the entire rest of the year. Or so it seems. Everyone has an opinion on which wines do best with the turkey and the trimmings on the one day of the year that the majority of us eat more or less the same thing.

I spent last weekend in smoky Los Angeles, visiting friends and enjoying a slice of its diverse dining and social scene as wild fires raged nearby, making the air heavy with smoke and tinting the sun an amber color. Friday night I dined at Michael Mina's new place, XIV, it being his 14th restaurant.

Posted by 1 I can see now that to be a good journalist or wine writer, it is probably better not to be a winemaker at the same time. Well, especially not during harvest! So a month after my first blog contribution, let me tell you a bit on what is going on in the Côte-Rôtie.

Posted by 1 November 5: The must has now been cold soaking for five days, and we've been regularly 1 and 1 as necessary to the fermenters. We're starting to see the readings more closely match our expected results. In the early stages, we often see smaller drops in Brix level (a measure of the sugar content) day-to-day than would have been expected from the amount of water added.

The 1 may be dead and we may never know all the reasons why. I still believe that Montelena's owner Jim Barrett wanted to sell the winery and was elated to have a buyer. Whether he changed his mind and wants to keep the property, or the economy changed the would-be buyer's mind and forced him to rethink his strategy, is unknown.

Posted by 1 Tomorrow we will be pressing out our final Pinot Noir fermentations, and the winemaking season will slow down—for now. Barrels that were filled with wine earlier on in the harvest period are now safely tucked away in the cellar.

I have been interested in the comments in my blog and the general buzz in the marketplace about our choice for the 1. It seems that some people are upset that the wine was not a 2005 Bordeaux, or the 1. In regard to the latter, I don't think it should have been named Wine of the Year--I'm not a huge fan, due to its slightly sweaty aromas--but obviously, I can better comment on Bordeaux.

The grapes are picked and the fermentation vats are full, so I used this moment of relative quiet for the vignerons to get an early read on them for the just completed 2008 harvest. Here's a look from both the Southern and Northern Rhône Valley.

Coming up this week is the one day of the year that specifically celebrates wine. It's not a national holiday, but you wouldn't know it if you happened to wander into a French bistro—in France or anywhere else in the world. Chalked up on the blackboard or spelled out in a banner festooning the entrance, a sign will proclaim "Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arivée!" Yes, all over the world, cases of 2008 French red wine one step from grape juice will make the long journey from the vineyards of southern Burgundy to a casual wine bar near you.

Posted by 1 1: Since we had to allow the Mourvèdre to hang on the vine so long in order to get the fruit ripe, we ended up with higher sugar levels and lower acid levels than we'd optimally like. We therefore need to add some water and acid, or we'll end up with a finished wine that has too much alcohol and not enough structure.

You must be excited to discover what the 1 is. I certainly am. I wish I could give you some clues. But I can't. I have been sworn to secrecy. But I revisited 1 the other night in Los Angeles with Bob Golbahar of Twenty Twenty Wine Merchants.

Posted by 1 The alcoholic fermentations are done, both at Brancaia in Chianti Classico and in the Maremma, so our principal task and decision-making process during the next 12 to 20 months involves when, for how long and in what kind of oak we barrel all the different young wines.

Ade desperately wanted the Wine Spectator Wine of the Year . So when the 1 won honors in 1988, she searched high and low before locating two bottles in a wine shop in Santa Ana. She asked the retailer to put the bottles on hold and drove the 90 miles from San Diego to Santa Ana, where she happily claimed her two bottles, paying about the going rate of $37 each for the 97-point rated Pauillac.

I sat down with 1 here at my office earlier this week. Tirado is the head winemaker for 1, and he oversees the winery's flagship Don Melchor bottling, as well as a number of other projects, including TriVento in Argentina. Still young, Tirado has nonetheless already delivered on the great promise he displayed 1 that really got Chile's industry rolling earlier this decade—a group that includes 1, 1 and 1, among others.

The quality of California Syrah continues to skyrocket, and its success is pulling along other Rhône Valley grape transplants, chief among them Grenache. As we've tasted through dozens of new Rhône-style reds in recent weeks, it's amazing how delicious so many of these infant wines are.

Posted by 1 November 2: We didn't touch the fermenters on Saturday because we don't take any 1 or 1 readings until the must has been allowed to soak for two days. We know that the juice will always extract more sugar and acid from the skins than what we would see right out of the crusher, so there's no need to fool ourselves by taking measurements early.

I had an excellent California Pinot Noir last week at 1 restaurant in West Hollywood on the recommendation of the sommelier, Rory Harrington. The 2005 Ambullneo Vineyards Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley was rich and luscious, with loads of ripe strawberry, light earth character and hints of smoky oak.

I have been traveling in the past week with a dining partner who can not drink much. Rather than ordering a whole bottle, which would inevitably require leaving some behind so I could drive back to the hotel safely, I have been choosing several different wines by the glass over the course of the meals.