If you’re like me, my wife and our friends, there is a high probability you are reading this with a glass of wine in your hand. You will rarely find us without one in the evening hours after work or on the weekends.
If so, then we think you’ll enjoy participating in this online community where our goal is to educate each other in the basic characteristics and styles of wine as well as the social aspect (i.e. tastings, dinners, visiting wineries, wine clubs, etc.) of wine by sharing stories and knowledge as average, everyday wine drinkers like you.
We will also tend to be biased toward what we call “value” wines, which we define as those wines that are relatively inexpensive ($<=20), easy to obtain and taste well beyond their price point. All of this being shared from our, and your, own non-expert experiences, as we are not wine store owners, sommeliers, nor winemakers - at least not yet! But, of course, should any experts show up, we would love to hear from them too as we all would like to educate and be educated in the ever growing and increasingly accessible world of wine. Cheers!
I know, I KNOW! I've been a slacker lately and having been adding my thoughts here. It's been a busy year, but that
shouldn't be an excuse if I want to keep this gig moving forward. Anyway, I will try to do better.
For one, the wife and I are planning a trip to Oregon and the Willamette Valley to visit some wineries in September. Looking forward to all the awesome Pinot Noirs (among others, of course). My friend, Jack, warns me of "Pinot fatigue" but I'm not too worried about that. I hope to post our findings after the trip here... even though I know I failed at adding our Virginia wine notes... I started those and still hope I can get them added.
I also competed in another sprint triathlon and here are the results (28th overall out of 344 and 5th in my age group):
http://www.ntssb.com/images/MFT-MNT_Overall.pdf
Pl Name Swim min/100yds Pl T1 Bike MPH Pl T2 Run min/mi Pl Total Time Back
We hosted a neighborhood tasting Friday night and had a wonderful time. Turns out the Menage a Trois, a personal favorite, was the winning "value wine" (the party theme) at $9.99. Cedar on the nose and a tremendous mouthfeel, big tannins and some cassis. Some noted some nutty characteristics as well.
But, that's not what I am here to talk about today. As the tasting winds down, often we sit and drink more and tell stories. As such, I brought up another bottle of Menage a Trois as well as the Greppi super tuscan I've mentioned earlier in this blog from the basement. However, one of our neighbors went back to his house and then brought back an il Cavaliere di Castagnole Monferatto which is made from the rare Ruche' varietal. It was awesome! He happened upon it by chance while in Denver which is home of the only U.S. importer of this wine. Turns out there are only about 100 acres of this grape grown in the Piedmont region. It had an inky color, with distinctive fruit and peppery flavro rounded out with medium tannins. A very nice, even wine through and through.
Completed another competition this weekend, a duathlon that consisted of a 5 mile trail run and a 10 mile mountain bike ride. It was the first of its kind for me and the weather was incredible here in Atlanta. Race proceeds helps fund the new North Loop at Blankets Creek in Woodstock, GA and I was quite happy with my results: 2:02:43.885 even though I lost 2 weeks of training due to a cold in February. Next, I may be looking at the Tri Parks Triathlon in April, but I have some tendinitis below my calf I need to rehabilitate first probably.
My wife received a "sale notification" from one of our local wine merchants ( we are on many of their email lists ) for a 2004 Super Tuscan with a 94 rating from Wine Spectator. We normally keep ourselves on a wine budget because it can easily get out of hand and simply "ooh" and "ahh" at these types of emails. But, this time, due to our recent infatuation with Italy (we are building a cottage at Montaluce Winery & Estates north of Atlanta) this offer grabbed our attention. The deal was pretty good and we bought a 6-pack which we picked up just yesterday. We hadn't tasted this wine before, so it's a bit risky for us to spend $250+ (after the discount) on 6 bottles of wine we haven't tried. But, sometimes the reward is well worth the risk, and this was one of those occasions.
The first thing I noticed was a velvety and light oaky nose, which told me right away I was dealing with the old country and like I just walked into the winery itself. Blackberry and spice jumped out at me upon the first taste, but was not overbearing like a California Cab might be, and the smooth tannins lasted from front to back. The mouthfeel was satisfying and complete. The 2004 I Greppi Greppicaia is a seemingly perfect blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, though I do not know the ratio of each. Please, give it a shot. You won't be disappointed.
I recommend decanting the wine for about 30 minutes, however, it was lovely right out of the bottle as well.
http://www.americanbanker.com/article.html?id=20070412DZJBWCZU&queryid=2119954730&hitnum=1
Letter to the Editor: Profitability the Critical CRM Factor
American Banker | Friday, April 13, 2007
To the Editor:
I thought Nancy Michael's "Perspective" column ["Community Banks Are Strategizing in the Dark," Community Banking, April 3] was right on in regards to the benefits of customer analytics and their absolute necessity for any bank to compete in today's marketplace.
However, customer relationship profitability is the most relevant necessary customer analytic upon which to build the strategies discussed in the piece. Unfortunately, the MCIFs she mentions are not equipped to accurately and effectively calculate relationship profitability.
For example, you wouldn't use just any customer analytic to help your branch personnel decide the best product to upsell/cross-sell to a particular customer. Ultimately, you would expect them to sell a product that results in increased profit, and to do that, you need to know the current profitability segment in which this customer relationship resides, and a pricing tool that helps you run what-if scenarios in real time as you mold the product offering to meet the customer's needs. MCIFs do not have these capabilities.
Banks need a profitability solution as the cornerstone of their CRM initiatives.
Ed Thralls, Director
IPS-Sendero, Norcross, Ga.
Editor's Note: IPS-Sendero is a unit of Fiserv Inc.
Big Bank vs. Small Bank - Which One Has The Best Technology?
By Art Gillis
Nov 12, 2007 at 02:11 PM ET
Once again, I first must confess to a bias before making this case. "Big" by itself has never impressed me. "Big and capable" is another matter. So when I tell you that small banks have better technology than the giants, I'm ready to defend my statement with facts.
http://www.banktech.com/blog/archives/2007/11/big_bank_vs_sma.html?cid=RSS_bt_blog#324617401
| Ed Thralls | Posted on 11/14/2007 10:57 AM EST | Permalink | The point you make regarding integration and conversion risk is key in my opinion. With the failure you refer to in your opening big bank core re-write story, integration with the existing core app system is the best way to continually add value to core's customers and keep it "sticky". One such value-add includes integrating customer and predictive analytics solutions using data sourced from the core to allow banks to develop targeted growth strategies and implement profit-based incentive programs. |
A couple of weeks after my Triathlon I decided to join some friends from our old neighborhood for a 5k stroll through downtown Roswell to the park. As I noted earlier, I posted a personal best at the Kaiser Permanente run and was looking to break the 25 minute mark at this run. The weather was great, but a little cool as we entered Autumn full on. I was able to beat my goal by a minute, finishing with 24:01, a new personal best, and 82nd of 486 runners. Here are the final stats:(http://www.roswellrunners.com/2007%20HR5K%20-%20Winners-Finishers.htm)
I know! I still owe you a write up of our Virginia wine trip. I started a draft but then my laptop went on the fritz and I won't get it back until next week. Also, a lot of our notes ended up at my in-laws house after the trip, so I needed to get a hold of those as well.
p.s. Our shipment of Merry Edwards Pinot Noir from Sonoma Coast came in, so I cannot wait to try it out at Thanksgiving... I'll try to post some notes on that as well.
p.p.s. more on the wine front, we and a few of our closest wine friends are looking into using CrushPad to make our own wine... check this site out: http://www.crushpadwine.com/
I know I stated previously that I would share our thoughts on the Virginia wine tour we experienced last weekend, but we are still tallying votes and wine notes from the 10 wineries we visited. So, sit tight!
In the meantime, I ran in the Kaiser-Permanente Corporate Run/Walk 5K on September 27 and posted an all-time best 25:07. Coulda broke the 25 min barrier if I hadn't waited on the water guy who took forever to give me a cup!
Next up: The Historic Roswell 5k this Saturday and quite possibly a ride on the 3 Gaps 50 of Dahlonega on Sunday... to be determined...
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I agree with your suggestion. Sometimes the best way to discover a new favorite is to be willing to experiment... read more
on How to Choose a Value Wine