What to be Thankful For

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, my family and I discovered and thoroughly investigated what I consider to be the greatest piece of software ever invented...Pandora. As I understand it, if you have a wireless internet connection you can set it up. We have wireless speakers and a little thing that looks and feels like a PDA and you can basically go around your house and choose and play any music, any radio station (that is streamed), any song that is downloaded into your computer. Or maybe play a CD in one room and other music in another room with one fingertip touch. My life is changed. It is unbelievable. Your favorite music all the time.

So last night we sat at the table after a delicious meal (except for my sweet potato biscuits - those were a flop - note to self: don't try new recipes on Thankgiving) and created playlists from the artists that my Mother used to make us listen to when we were growing up. The favorite of the night...Shirley Bassey radio!!! Santana, The Fifth Dimension, Jackson 5. What a riot. Each time you choose an artist Pandora will save that "station" and it will choose songs similar to that artist. It is magical.

What if there was a Pandora for wine?? If you loved, for instance, a flowery, mango-ish, perfectly balanced semi-dry riesling from Fox Run Vineyards a little voice would pop up and say, "well if you loved that wine, then you will love........" what a great viral selling tool for Finger Lakes wines. And the little voice would only suggest Finger Lakes rieslings because this is the only place that such wine is available. We are so lucky to be living and working here in this beautiful place.

What if there was a Pandora for winemaking teams?? That would be a complete failure. I can tell you for sure that there is no other team like the 3 amigos up there. Peter Bell is my hero. First of all, a man who speaks six languages makes me swoon. I am consistently amazed at the quality of every wine that shows up in the tasting room. One of the first times I met Peter he came down to the Cafe for a wine & food pairing and as we were tasting the 2006 Gewurztraminer I blurted out that he was a genius and he gave me a big hug. The talented Ms. Tricia Renshaw is quite a find with her uncanny olfactory memory and fantastic descriptors. When I first came to Fox Run I spent most of the night at an event with Tricia and the next day called up to the winery to announce to Peter that I was madly in love with her. Then there is Kelby J. Russell who started as an intern. He sent letters to lots of Finger Lakes wineries and I think Peter was one of only two people to respond...we are so lucky he did. Kelby graduated from Harvard, and basically has been traveling around the world in order to execute what I think is a very calculating strategy to find the perfect life. A brilliant, cool, winemaker-marketing expert-tech head-music fan-foodie. He is mainly responsible for this blog and keeping it alive.

As I sit here finishing this post I am listening to Nina Simone radio on Pandora which leads us to Charlie Spivak, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Big Mama Thorton, Rosemary Clooney, Diana Krall, Nat King Cole, etc!!!!! I am so thankful.

Here is my shameless Fox Run plug...sorry Kelby J. Russell: Today only!! Come to the winery and buy our delicious 2007 Meritage and get a bottle of our even more delicious 2007 Pinot noir FREE.

By: Leslie Kroeger, Marketing & Jack-of-all-trades


Music of the Day:

• Stanton Moore - Take It To The Street; "Who Took The Happiness Out?"
• Ed. Note: Leslie wins the award for being the first person to select a song I couldn't find a video for on Youtube to plug.  The selection is fantastic, however, and can be heard for free via the Amazon link above.  Check it out!

Support Artists, buy the music you like!