One of the coolest things about working in wine is the awesome people you get to meet. After all, famous and otherwise super groovy people love wine just like the rest of us.

One of the biggest rewards of my career in wine has been getting to spend time with Dale Robertson, Houston’s legendary sports writer.

Legendary, you ask? Just ask him about the time that Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini punched him out. Don’t believe me? Dale has the goods and the bruises to prove it.

The funny thing about our friendship is that I’m not into sports at all. I know, that’s weird. But beyond the Olympics and the occasional soccer game, it’s just not my thing.

The thing we do have in common is great food and wine.

Dale always says that he first got into haute dining when he covered the Tour de France. Back then, when print media was still queen, sports writers had fat cat expense accounts that allowed them to hobnob with the rich and famous. For a kid from El Paso with a degree in journalism from the University of Houston, it was like Dorothy stumbling upon the Golden Brick Road.

Somewhere along the way, he also became the wine writer for Houston’s paper of record.

And the tales he tells from those years, both gastronomic and Pindaric (how’s that for a 75-cent word?), are ripe with some damn good eating and drinking and some bigger-than-life colorful characters. I’ll never forget a crestfallen Dale eulogizing Bum Phillips over a bottle of 2006 Quintarelli Amarone after the football great passed away in 2013.

It must have been in late 2019 that he and I first started talking about launching a podcast. But it wasn’t until January of last year that we finally took the plunge.

We’re now in the second “season” of our show, with more than 20 episodes in the can.

It’s always a thrill when someone comes up to us a trade tasting and mentions that they’ve been listening. But I think that Dale would agree when I say that we really just keep doing it because we like hanging out and chewing the proverbial fat. It could also be that he loves our little Chihuahua, Paco. That’s Paco in his lap during a recent session.

Check out our podcast, “The Sport Wine Guy,” here. Thanks for listening!