Now that I've had a couple of days to rehydrate so that my brain feels less like it's been slow-cooked in bacon grease, I can start the Vine train rolling again. For a little background, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I hunker down each New Year's Eve...

Breakfast is "the most important meal of the day." Lunch is all too often fast food or something you scarf while you're plowing through the workday, since America hasn't adopted the tremendously civilized siesta. Everyone puts their focus on creating tasty dinners. I'd venture that upwards of 90% of wine pairings, tastings, et al focus on dinner. But what about brunch?

Party Season: the stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year's. Most folks' dance cards fill up early with social engagements -- dinners with groups of friends, notorious office parties, and general gatherings for people to mingle, drink, and be merry. Custom demands you "bring something to the party," and wine's always a good choice. All you need is a corkscrew and a sound system -- you've got yourself an official shindig.

I have a bone to pick with Lou Reed. Our title comes from a liner note stipulation on Lou Reed's…ahem…"experimental" 1975 Metal Machine Music. Sweet Jane's father and I have a major difference of opinion here. Sniffers are absolutely welcome at The Naked Vine. Sniffing is encouraged, to be perfectly honest. In fairness, Good Mister Reed is talking about his then-preference for mainlining amphetamines and I'm talking about tasting wine -- context is everything, after all. I also hope this column is easier to handle with your lunch...

Welcome to the most exhausting time of the year. Thanksgiving travel gives way to familial dinner table stress. Black Friday comes, with its yearly dose of lines, crowds, stampedes and shootings. Blood pressures rise. Tension mounts. TV, radio, email, Twitter, Christmas music on all stations, bad weather, road rage. The long stretch of holiday parties, shopping, budgetary woes, seasonal affective disorder, all screeching towards the end-of-month holidays and...finally...New Year's, after which everyone is too hung over to be stressed...

Remember: Good wine is well-spoiled grape juice. All else follows. I recently leafed through an issue of Gourmet magazine to check out their "Best Wines for Grilling." I did a double take. Don't get me wrong - I leaf through that magazine every month to get new ideas. When the cheapest recommended selection on a rack of pinots...

Sometimes, a column unexpectedly falls into your lap. On a day that found me wracked with a horrid case of writer's block, a ray of sunshine flashed across my flat screen in the form of this email from Sarah at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington: Every month, we produce a small newsletter, "Wine Notes," for the University of Washington Business School. This month, we're featuring an article on "The Perfect Wine to Bring Home for Thanksgiving" and were hoping we could get your advice. We've come up with four somewhat comical but very real situations that many of...