Wine for Writing Holiday Cards

Yup, it's that time of year. Time to write those holiday cards. I confess, I love holiday cards. Sending them, getting them. They make me feel happy, festive. I love to watch the pile of finished cards get bigger and bigger, stamped and addressed and ready to go out into the world. And getting them, of course, I love getting them. Putting them around the living room where my hubby and I can see them and count (on a daily basis) how many people love us. Magic.

Emailed holiday cards, I'm sorry, that's cheating. And I'm not going to lie, I'm not a huge fan of those photo cards either. Mostly because they are usually one flat piece of paper and are hard to keep upright on the coffee table. Of course you can lean them against another card, but then they block the card they're leaning against, and eventually they just fall flat on the table and mess up our people-who-love-us count (because we don't see them flat on the table), or they waft away on a breeze and float under the coach and are never seen again.

Anyway, there are many things I love about the holiday card. The thing I enjoy least is that fact that it seems to take me forever to get them done. This is due mostly to the fact that I have the handwriting of a four-year-old, and the more cards I write, the more tired my hand gets and the worse my writing becomes until I wind up sending my friends cards that look like they came off a prescription pad, where you look at the paper from all different angles, wondering if the doctor has written your prescription upside down, in Sanskrit, or in that backward mirror writing Da Vinci used.

The only way for me to avoid this is to write veerrry slowly and deliberately, and for some reason, to press down really hard. This system allows me to write about three cards per hour, because any more than that and I am left with a cramped hand-claw that hurts for days. I have tried simply writing much shorter messages, and the more cramped my hand gets, the shorter the messages become, until I have gone from "Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season" and "All the best in the new year" to things like "Hooray" and, for some godforsaken reason "Go for it", which, when my hand got REALLY tired, simply became "Go!", which, let's face it, is just confusing.

Now, some of you might say: "Hey, it's the computer age. Why don't you just print out your cards, that way your hand won't hurt?" I'll tell you why: because that is cheating!!! Don't you get it people?! If you just print out your cards, and print out address labels, then you're not really writing holiday cards, are you? You're just stuffing envelopes. There should be a certain amount of personal sacrifice involved in the holiday card-writing. If I can't move my hand for a few days, then neither should you, and that's just how it should be. People may not be able to read anything I've written to them, but dammit, they know that that "Happy Nferw yrsd" and "Yippee" and "Go Go Go!" came from me.

So with all that in mind, I have decided to give in to my slow holiday card writing, and just enjoy some wine while I'm writing them. I can say with absolute authority that drinking wine makes my handwriting look better. At least it makes it look better to me. So off I go: card, sip, card, sip and so on. My husband will either come home to find me in chipper spirits, with that lovely rosey wine-glow about the cheeks, or he'll find me sprawled on the couch, empty wine glass in hand, buried in chicken scrawl holiday cards, drooling into the cushion. I'll let you guess which one.

But for now, on to the wine. My card-writing wine choice is a 2007 Audelssa Tephra. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, before I sold wine for Canihan Family Cellars I sold wine for Audelssa, but I no longer work for them, and therefore get no commission if you run out and buy 20 cases. Though, hey, it couldn't hurt to mention me, maybe they'll feel bad and pony up.

But seriously, I truly love this wine, and I thought it would be best to start off with something I feel certain you will love too. Audelssa is a small Sonoma, CA family vineyard. It is in a beautiful spot, with vines that grow up on the hillside in multi-million-year-old volcanic soil. The Tephra is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Zinfandel. It is very food-friendly, meaning you can serve it with a variety of dishes like burgers, pizza, paella, but it is also wonderful to drink on its own. It is fruity and warm with a little bit of the spice that comes from the Syrah and the Zinfandel. It retails for $28 a bottle, which, honestly, I think is a steal. If you can find it where you are, it's a great wine to bring along to a party, or dinner at a friend's, and since it's not so well-known at this point, it will be a great discovery. Try it. I know you will not be disappointed.
Until next week...
www.audelssa.com