“It’s time to make the doughnuts.”

Chad of (Un)Common Grape was the winner of the last Wine Writers Challenge and he had the honor of selecting the theme of this challenge and the word is “new.” I immediately thought of the quote that I opened up with, which was the tagline for a doughnut company’s television advertisement back in the 1980’s and the song lyrics “everything old is new again.”

“New” is rather unique for the theme and as always I tend to ponder these challenges for some time, as they flow differently then my usual writings. I tend to write these articles, as I self-proclaim is a non-technical report. To me, new is the deadline that I think of as I write these articles. It is finding something that I think will be interesting as to why I was enjoying the glass of wine. Almost anything can be the catalyst for the genesis of an article; a matchbook (and how I lament that they are no longer used for advertising), a business card, a menu, a show bill and even the wine label.

The conceit of my writing is that I am picturing someone across the table from me, as we share some glasses of wine and I relate the story that I am thinking about. After all what is all a raconteur is, but a story teller, and when I grew up during the glorious days of black and white television sets, I was allowed to watch some of the greatest raconteurs of the last century. Some were authors, some were actors and the majority of them were comedians; and I wish that I had that ability to tell these stories with humor. What these great raconteurs never did, was be condescending and I tried to emulate them. For every majestic wine that the whole world knows, there are thousands of wines that are not known and I try to cover both categories. I try to never discuss the price of a wine and even though the aspect of wine making is fascinating to me, I don’t want to drive my imaginary friend on the other side of the table in to binge drinking as I discuss long tables of data.

The deadline is “new” for every article. Once I decide on the topic of the day, I try to find two pictures for the article, as I tend to publicize my writings two days in a row on Social Media. Once the topic is chosen, how to make it flow into an easy to grasp chat with the concept that wine should be one of the reasons for the merriment and enjoyment of the moment, can be the real challenge. The challenge that I don’t want to face is trying to come up with new descriptors for the color, the nose, the taste and the after taste moment. The Thesaurus that I keep on one of the bookcases would have to be held together with rubber bands if I tried to be creative with “new” descriptive words. I think that it is easier to say that a Chardonnay wine is crisp or it is buttery, as I feel that even the average wine drinker like me can make a determination on the wine from those two words. Then after writing the article, I proof the article three times, one for content, one for grammar (which the old Board of Education prided themselves on) and once to make sure that it sounds like me. I tend to write in Word and then I copy and paste my article into WordPress and add key words for searches and then the pictures. I then save the article to my publisher and then I preview it, just to see if I didn’t miss any mistakes from the last three times that I read the article. Finally I enter the date and time that I wish to have the article published, which is every other day at the same time every evening. So when I add in all the additional time that I may do for research for the venue, the wine, the grape, the district etc.; I am always amazed when I see that some Bloggers may have several articles published on the same day, considering the time that I spend, even if it doesn’t seem that way.

Some other slants that I had were “new” wines, new AVA designations, Beaujolais Nouveau and the “new” me since I have become a Blogger. I don’t feel that with a Blog that one really needs the deadline, but since I can procrastinate, it is better that I maintain deadlines. I am just like the baker that wakes up and decides that it is time to make more doughnuts, right after I take a serious wine break.