We hate beating a dead horse, but you have to admit that today’s storm was pretty amazing to watch.  Whether you had your television on CNN, MSNBC, Fox or the Weather Channel, you couldn’t miss the ‘Sandy Effect’.  Everything from Wall Street to Main Street was affected.  We’ve never seen so many Tweets than coming from the Mayor of New York’s office or the Governor of New Jersey’s office, but at the same time, were blown away by the coverage of this storm.  With a daughter in Boston and a niece in Washington D.C. and more family in New Jersey, to say that we were keeping a watchful eye on things may be an understatement.  Having been through a hurricane, a tropical storm or two, a snowstorm and a flooding event, we feel like we can relate to what has been going on up on the East Coast.

When we got married in 1983, we spent an August day at home in our little apartment watching horizontal rain fall as Hurricane Alicia came on shore.  We lost power for a few hours, but Jean’s Mom and Dad lost power for more than a week, and so our wedding cake in the freezer became Jean’s sister’s birthday cake!  When Daughter #2 was born, we had endured massive amounts of rain and even watched farmhouses being swept away by rising river levels . . . after the floods that year, someone told us that the confluence of the Illinois River and the Missouri River had moved north by 20 miles!  Never confirmed that, but you have to admit, nature is POWERFUL!  When we moved to Aransas Pass down on the Gulf Coast by Corpus Christi, we had a couple of close encounters of the tropical kind and we still remember buying sheet after sheet of plywood to cut window openings in case we needed to board up our windows.  Instead, we were inundated with 20 inches of rain which yielded mosquitoes the size of 767 airplanes!

The plain reality is that Mother Nature is always going to throw you a curve.  How you handle it is entirely up to you!  After talking with our daughter and hearing from Brian’s sister about how the kids were faring, we figured that we were more stressed – by a long shot – than the kids were.  Confirmation of that came when we found out that Domino’s was still delivering in the Nation’s capital, and classes were back on for Tuesday at Tuft’s in  Boston.  So, it seemed kind of like a no-brainer to select tonight’s sampling  .  .  .  a 2008 Plungerhead Zinfandel from Lodi, California – the heart of serious Zin Country!!  This wine was a great choice for a long Monday – a great nose – we mean SERIOUS Zin-like qualities, lots of pepper not only on the nose, but also on the taste.  A great, fruit flavor of black cherries and currants with a hint of spices and leather.  For a $14 bottle of wine, you may want to grab more than a bottle of it.  We enjoyed ours with some pan-fried salsbury steak and roasted potatoes with red peppers and red onions.  The food went really well with the wine, and the win – well, the wine went well.  Period!  We picked this wine up for under $15 at our local haunt – Gabriel’s, but you can find it at a number of places.

Unfortunately, according to the latest news from several sources, over 3 million homes are without power along the Eastern Seaboard .  .   .which kind of bites.  Losing power is no fun.  Whether its from a hurricane, a snow storm,  a thunderstorm or other causes, and it forces us to take drastic action .  .  . do we open the refrigerator to try the bottle of white wine we’ve been holding out to try?  Or, do we go ahead and open the red wine and keep the refrigerator door shut?  With a bottle of 2008 Plungerhead Zinfandel – we’d opt to keep the door shut.  If you’re on the East Coast, no worries, we’ve got your back and understand the hardships today and potentially in the days ahead.  If you’re elsewhere in our great country, keep these folks in your thoughts, and prayers .  .  . natural disasters are tough, and when you enjoy your wine, please do so responsibly–especially if the power has gone out.  And remember, recycle whenever you can.