I'm just back from a few days in New York, where we caught up with our younger daughter, who is doing a fashion internship there, did a lot of eating, and celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a great dinner at Daniel (yellowfin tuna three ways being particularly memorable).

I am so heartened by wine's apparently fully entrenched place in American society today. It doesn't seem that long ago when all things alcoholic were seen as deeply evil in the US. The likes of the late Robert Mondavi felt that he was almost alone in the wilderness preaching the gospel...