A Spanish Treat

After Day 2 of trying to get a Minnesota driver's license -- oh, the bureaucracy! -- I needed to treat myself, and what I selected was the 2005 Joan d'Anguera La Planella (Monsant, Spain.) It was $17 at South Lyndale Liquors. The wine is 40 percent mazuelo and 20 percent each of syrah, grenache and cabernet sauvignon.
I never really pay too much attention to "official" wine ratings: to me, a good wine is any wine you like. But I was browsing around online and saw this one gets an 89 from erobertparker.com, so that's nice to know, if that's your thing.
This ruby red had aromas of cinnamon and straw, and on first taste you definitely get a big blast of the tannic/acidic mazuelo grape. It was a bit of a chameleon, though, and softened up after half an hour of airing. The Planella is full-bodied, too, at 14.5 percent alcohol. Just the thing to take the edge off after a day at the license bureau.

Please, Let Me Pay Some Taxes

I might have to rename this blog Whinemouth temporarily.
We have had a lot to celebrate lately -- our return to Minnesota, the sale of our New York apartment -- and, naturally, have had our fair share of Champagne. A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to pick up a bottle of bubbly to share with a dinner guest. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday and I was out of luck.
Minnesota is one of 14 states that still enforces a ban on Sunday liquor sales. As the economy is still struggling back from a painful recession, you would think states would be doing everything possible to add to their tax revenues, by repealing these silly blue laws. But it hasn't happened yet.
Clinging to such laws is not just quaint. It's antiquated. It's bad for business. It's bad for consumers like me. Why shouldn't I be able to buy wine whenever I want?