Wining through the holidays...Christmas...

Christmas is always a bit problematic for me. For one thing, I'm Jewish, so the whole religious aspect is kind of lost on me. On the other hand, JD is not Jewish, so every year I ask him if he wants to decorate the house for the holidays, and every year, I get the 'look', so it's never necessary to do anything but display the holiday cards.

However, December 25th is my sister's birthday, and she LOVES everything about Christmas. Every year she decorates the whole house - multiple beautifully decorated trees, every David Winter cottage ever made, plus other cute cottage and village collections, plus, plus, plus. It's an ocean of cuteness.

Oh, and the Christmas/Birthday party. It used to be huge; my sis would invite every person she knew - family, friends, business associates. Most of Los Angeles, I think. As the years have gone by, the party has gotten smaller; now it's mainly family. And the family has gotten smaller, too.

Wineaux of the Goddess - February Edition - Alsace

The Goddess of Wine and her merry band of Wineaux met, as always, on the second Wednesday of the month. Hostess with the Mostess, Xochitl Maiman, put together snacks and dinner designed to go with the wines of the month from the currently French region of Alsace. Tasters included Barbara Barrielle, Debra Bizek, Shawn Shai Halahmy, Rico Mandel, Michelle McCue. All the wines were purchased from K & L Wines in Hollywood.

Some background on Alsace: Almost all Alsatian wine is produced under one of the region's three AOC designations - Alsace, Alsace Grand Cru and Crémant d'Alsace. Unlike most other French wine regions, there is no Vin de pays designation for Alsace. This means that wines that do not qualify for AOC status have to be sold as simple Vin de table de France. This happens in some instances when producers wish to use other grape varieties in their wine, like Domaine Zind-Humbrecht which sells its cuvée Zind, a blend of 65% Chardonnay and 35% Auxerrois.