Priorities

My TweetCloud from Twitter, originally uploaded by Kevglobal.

I guess it’s pretty clear what I Twitter about: Suw, my wife.

April snow in London

April snow in London, originally uploaded by Kevglobal.

This isn’t a news flash to any local, but we woke up to a blanket of snow with more coming down. When I first rolled out of bed at 8 am, it was really falling fast and furious. It actually seemed heavier and wetter than now at 11 am.

Snow is beautiful. Suw isn’t a big fan of the cold, and I survived my share of bitterly cold winters growing up west of Chicago. But I do love snow.

It is frequent enough where I grew up that people know how to cope with it, but here in London and back in Washington DC where I lived for six years, it’s too frequent for either the cities or the people to know how to cope with it. It generally leads to chaos and wailing and gnashing of teeth by the locals. It gives me a chuckle.

Tyrrell’s Vat 11 2002 Baulkham Shiraz

Tyrell’s Vat 11 2002 Baulkham Shiraz, originally uploaded by Kevglobal.

I bought this wine at Sydney Australia Duty Free on my way back from a recent conference. The Duty Free shops in Australia are brilliant for good wine and good wine values.

I thought about buying a nice premium wine, such as D’Arenberg’s Dead Arm. But instead, I bought Suw a quite nice pare of opal ear rings set in white gold as a late wedding present. Instead, of buying something pricey, I decided to buy two bottles of moderately priced wine.

Fortunately, one of the sales staff at duty free also said that he was a judge at regional wine competitions, and he definitely seemed to know his stuff. I wanted to buy two bottles of good Aussie Shiraz, and he made a good point, which is that buying a Shiraz that had some time in the bottle was important. It being such a big wine, it needed some time to reach it’s peak.

He steered me in the direction this bottle of Tyrrell’s. He said that it was a special selection, with the winemaker choosing the grapes and using a special retro label that was like the style that he grew up with.

The wine was lovely. It is a very good representative of the meaty style of Shiraz that Australian winemakers are so good at making. It’s a huge red with a good balance, even tannins and acicity with a lovely smoky character. It’s a good wine with either red meat or mushrooms. Have plenty of water on hand because as Suw and I have found with so many Shiraz wines, it can leave your mouth a little dry. But a top bottle at a reasonable price.