Smith-Story Cabernet Sauvignon was delicious, a perfect fit for our family.

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Every since I poured my Houston cousin Neil a bottle of Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine he swooned over, it’s become a bit of a shared family quest: to find Neil Cabernet Sauvignon with freshness (acidity), a combination of fruit and savory flavors, and judicious use of oak aging.

Over the years he’s moved away from the oaky-jammy paradigm that managerial class members like him used to drink regularly. Maybe because he’s been enjoying Italian wines with us over the last decade, food-friendliness and freshness have become the two criteria that seem to drive his preferences.

While shopping for our family’s holiday wines last year, I came across the Smith-Story Sonoma Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon at our go-to wine shop, Houston Wine Merchant.

I first met Alison Smith back during her Texas career when she was a supplier rep for a high-profile Italian winery group. I’ve never met her husband Eric Story but I have enjoyed following their winery’s social media — especially their cynophilia.

Although the wine wasn’t a cheap date, it didn’t break the bank either. And it hit that sweet spot between inexpensive fruit-forward, oakier California Cabernet Sauvignon, and the really high end stuff (like Smith-Madrone), which I love but cannot regularly afford.

This wine had freshness, balanced fruit and acidity, judicious alcohol, and no oakiness.

Neil loved it, too, and it was gone in a flash after being served at our Hanukkah party. I highly recommend the wine and the people who make it.

Please don’t stop praying for our sisters and brothers in LA. And please join us for the MLK Day March in Orange, Texas on Monday, followed by our protest of the Neo-Confederate memorial there.

Rock with me, march with me, pray for LA.

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Our family is still reeling as we watch the awful images from LA.

So many of my friends have been displaced but luckily everyone, at least in my personal LA orbit, seems to be okay. Thank G-d.

It’s terrifying to read some of their accounts of escaping the flames.

We are praying for the city and its communities. We know our LA friends and colleagues are going to need a lot of help in recovering. Right now, many are just looking for a place to sleep tonight. It’s terrible.

For folks in Houston, I did want to let you know that my 80s cover band, Biodynamic Band, featuring Katie White on vocals and melodica, will be playing this Sunday, January 12, at Vinsanto on the westside. We’ll be playing three sets starting at 4 p.m.

And just around the corner… Tracie, the girls, and I will be marching in the historic Orange, Texas, MLK March on Monday, January 20. See flier below.

For those who have never participated, I believe you’ll find it to be an extremely compelling experience.

After the march, Tracie and I will be heading over the neo-Confederate memorial on I-10 for our yearly protest. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard across the from the monument. It will remain active throughout January and February (Black History Month).

I recognize that protesting symbols of white supremacy isn’t for everyone. But the march is something that nearly everyone in the community — except for the white supremacists — participates in.

We hope to see you then (Orange is an hour and a half drive from Houston btw).

Thanks for the support and solidarity. Please pray for LA. G-d bless the City of Angels. G-d bless us all.

Praying for our sisters and brothers in LA.

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Tracie, the girls, and I are praying for our sisters and brothers in LA. I lived, went to school, and worked in west LA right where the fires are happening. It’s so unreal and scary. And we just got back from southern California where we spent our winter break. We left San Diego where my family lives just a day or so before the Santa Ana winds started up.

I have so many beloved friends and cherished colleagues in the LA area. I just did two wine events in LA a few weeks ago. I know they are going to need our support moving forward.

Let’s all pray for the families and communities impacted and affected. G-d bless them. Angeleños, please stay safe. We love you and you are in our thoughts and prayers. We will be ready to help when the time comes.

What are you doing on inauguration day? Please join us in our protest of the neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas!

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Thank you to everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard that looks over the monument. The billboard is already live and will stay up throughout MLK Day and Black History Month (February) 2025. Thank you and we hope to see you on MLK Day at our protest!

Please join us in a MLK Day PROTEST of the neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas (at Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. and Interstate 10, north access road):

MLK Day
Monday, January 20, 2025
location:
Confederate Memorial of the Wind
(Google map)
time:
1-3 pm

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE REPURPOSE EMAIL NEWSLETTER
to receive event details and updates.

Read more at RepurposeMemorial.com.

Orange TX is not to blame for the Neo-Confederate monument there. A puny group of aging cosplay cowardly Neo-Confederates is.

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Thank you to everyone who has donated to our GoFundMe to raise an MLK billboard over the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas where Tracie grew up, where her family still lives, and where our family has deep roots.

The city of Orange in southeast Texas — located on the Louisiana border along I-10, the first stop in Texas heading west, the last heading east — is not to blame for the Neo-Confederate monument there. A puny group of aging cosplay cowardly Neo-Confederates is.

They are called the Sons of Confederate Veterans and they are notorious for similar campaigns across the country, mostly in the south, most often featuring the “Confederate flag.”

Don’t believe their lies when they tell you they are a benign group supporting the preservation of their “heritage.” In fact, they are an ideologically driven cult that deals in insidious racism, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy theories.

Just browse some of the titles published by the Sons’ Deputy Chief Heritage Promotions James Ronald Kennedy and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The local yellow-bellied members behind the monument — Granvel Block and Hank Van Slyke — have made it clear to all involved that their conspicuous display of Neo-Confederate pageantry is intended to offend the city’s black community.

After all, they erected their puerile prank on MLK Dr., a main artery of the city.

The city of Orange fought tooth-and-nail to block the monument’s construction. They stymied the Sons by limiting the potential height of their flagpoles (so they are not entirely visible from the Interstate). A group of leading pastors pleaded with Block not to move forward with the site. The city attorney publicly condemned the site, calling it “repugnant.”

You can find an aggregate of mainstream media about the site and its origins at RepurposeMemorial.com. You’ll find detailed reports of the city’s efforts to block Block, the bird-brained architect behind the cheap-looking Greco-Roman atrium he built there. He’s been known as a prankster his whole life.

Nearly half the residents of Orange are black. The overwhelming number of people — black and white — who have reached out to us supporting our campaign have left me confident that we are doing the right thing. Nobody but Block and Van Slyke and their sad bunch of cosplayers want this aberration.

Image via Jimmy Emerson’s Flickr (Creative Commons).

Help us raise an MLK billboard over the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas.

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Please consider donating to our GoFundMe so that we can raise an MLK over the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas in time for MLK Day and Black History Month 2025.

Click here to donate.

The monument, believed the biggest Neo-Confederate site to be built since the 1910s, was debuted in 2017 and we have raised a billboard and organized a protest each year since.

At this point, we only need about $1,300 to reach our goal of $2k. Thanks to a surplus of $600 from 2023-24, we are already so close!

People ask me and Tracie why we do this every year. They’re never going to take it down, they tell us.

As a wise person once told me, sometimes the battles you know you are going to lose are the ones most important to fight.

We’ve been spit at, cussed at, rolled coal on, threatened with violence, bombarded with lit cigarettes…

But we’ve also received so many notes of thanks and encouragement from residents of Orange, especially from those who are frightened by the ongoing threats — verbal and physical — from the Sons of Confederate Veterans and their followers.

“I have to drive my child by that monument every day on our way to school,” one person wrote to me.

Click here to see what some of that abuse has looked like (it ain’t pretty).

Someday, the people that built the monument will be gone. We’ll see if their children continue to propagate their white supremacist message. In the meantime, Tracie and I are teaching our children that we all must stand up to racism and hate in our communities.

Thank you for your support. And hopefully we will see you in Orange on Monday, January 20, for the historic MLK March there, followed by our protest in the shadow of our MLK billboard at the site of the monument.

Read more about our efforts over the years and see photos from our protests here.

Thank you.

My NEW XMAS SINGLE: “Christmas in the USA.” Happy holidays everyone! See you in 2025! Thanks for everything this year.

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Thanks for all the support and solidarity in 2024! Have a great holiday and please check out my new album, including my latest single, “Christmas in the USA,” at ParzenFamilySingers.com. I’ll see you in 2025. Feel the spirit! G-d bless.

The apotheosis of veal parmigiana at Manducatis in Long Island City.

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Can you really blame a wine blogger for the excessive use of superlatives when they come across a dish that is the Platonic embodiment of a manifest fantasy?

Well, that’s what happened when I had dinner last month at one of my favorite restaurants — really, one of my favorite places on earth.

Usually, I ask owner and sommelier extraordinary Anthony, my good friend, to make a menu for us. But my friend Adam had been talking about the veal parmigiana — “veal parm” — all day in anticipation of our dinner there.

Our meal began with a Swiss-chard spaghetti alla puttanesca and then was followed by the veal, drowning in cheese and tomato, above.

Hyperbole aside, the food at Manducatis is excellent imho, in the sense that, beyond its wholesomeness and deliciousness, it captures a moment in time. Just like a song.

I don’t need to remind you that Anthony’s wine cellar is one of the most exciting Italian-focused programs in the country. I’m talking to you: lovers of old Nebbiolo, old Sangiovese and old Italian Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and even old Bordeaux, as I recently discovered.

It’s perhaps the only top-of-the-line list in the country that is ordered alphabetically. You don’t go to Anthony to drink “Italian regions.” You go to Anthony to drink iconic, rare, and aged. It’s nothing short of a fantasy fulfilled for this wine blogger. And the prices remain exceedingly reasonable.

As my year in blogging winds down, I just had to give one more shoutout to Anthony and Brendan, the floor sommelier whose deft hand has never met a crumbly cork he cannot conquer.

Thank you, Manducatis, for another night to remember. I can’t wait to see you again next year. G-d bless.

Neo-Nazi vandalism in my beloved Brescia. I can’t wait to return and stand proudly as a Jew in Piazza della Loggia.

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From Wikipedia:

“The Piazza della Loggia bombing (Italian: attentato di Piazza della Loggia) was a bombing that took place on the morning of 28 May 1974, in Brescia, Italy during an anti-fascist protest. The terrorist attack killed eight people and wounded 102.”

That’s the Palazzo della Loggia and the Piazza della Loggia in downtown Brescia. I took that photo in December 2022 during one of my many visits with my dear friends there.

Citizens of Brescia awoke this morning to find Neo-Nazi symbols spray-painted in the piazza, a beautiful Renaissance square in the city center.

Just a few days ago, Neo-Nazis staged an unauthorized rally in their city.

The Neo-Nazi thugs are drawn there in part because Brescia — led by a democratic, left-leaning mayor — is the one holdout city in a region now awash in post-Fascist attitudes. (Italy’s current government coalition defines itself as “post-Fascist” and traces its political roots back to Mussolini.)

A good friend of mine in the wine business, a gentile, recently complained to me about how much anti-Semitic language he heard on his last trip to Italy.

I’ve had my own recent encounters with rabid anti-Semitism in Italy.

You can see images of the vandalism here. And you can read the mayor’s response on her Instagram here. (Disclosure: she is a good friend of ours.)

I’ll be heading back to Italy in early 2025 for work. But before I roll up my sleeves and set about making a living, I already know what my first stop is going to be.

I’ll say a Kaddish for those who died there fighting for freedom in 1974. I’ll need a minyan. Will you join me?

Thank you, Mayor Castelletti, for standing up to these hooligans. I stand with you!