The dos and don'ts of giving wine

By TIM DUGGAN

It’s getting perilously close to Christmas and some of us have not finished shopping for the important people in our lives. I know that it can be a daunting task to buy a wine gift for somebody who is really, really into wine, especially if you are n ...

Tiz the season for giving

By JOHN DICKSON

UNITY SHOPPE held their 22nd annual Unity Telethon last Saturday. The event, whose primary sponsor was the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, had a bank of 30 phone lines and I was lucky enough to be able to take a turn answering calls in the early ...

Wine that will jazz up your holiday

By TIM DUGGAN

Buying wine as a gift or to bring to a holiday party is tricky if you don’t want to spend too much but also don’t want to make the faux pas of buying the wine equivalent of Natural Ice or Spam. Not everyone you know is an inveterate wine snob, but ma ...

Wines for Thanksgiving

For the last few weeks people have been asking me about what wines might go well with Thanksgiving meals. So I’ve been making a mental list of all of the various things that I’ve been telling them. (I’ve never been one to be stingy with advice about wine and food.) Maybe some of the following advice and affordable wine suggestions will help next week. Not all of the wine suggestions are local, but sometimes you have to go a little farther a field to find the right thing.