So I’m sitting here at my dining room table, sipping a glass of Australian shiraz and writing my column for you. The TV’s on (I’m a multi-tasker to a fault), it’s PBS Pledge Week and Seventy Years of Movie Music is vying for my attention. Sorry, it’s got it. Lulu’s throaty “To Sir with Love”, The Cowsills are groovin’ on “Hair”, and finally “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’”…sigh.

Back to work.

Red wine. Some say, it isn’t wine if it isn’t red. Whatever.

If you haven’t kept up with the red wine explosion, relax. Granted, it’s now a bit of a challenge to just grab a well-known brand and run with it. Nothing really stands out any more…just waves of dark bottles on shelves and so many of them—the stately cabs and merlots, the plump and juicy pinots, those burning, high alcohol zins. They’re all jumbled together. From all over the world they come to us: Austria, New Zealand, Rioja, Argentina and of course good old Napa and Sonoma. I am overwhelmed by it all.

I used to rely on my left brain for choosing my wine. Let’s see, this one’s known for it’s great hillside vineyards, and their winemaker has really made a name for himself. No thank you to that Napa chardonnay, I’d rather go with one from a cooler area like Monterey or Russian River. Darn, I can’t remember if that Bordeaux is a premier cru or a petit chateau. Oh, there’s a Lynch Bages, always a good choice.

My wine knowledge has come in handy over the years. It’s felt like a secret weapon that made the task of wine selection, whether in a grocery store, at a winery or at a restaurant, effortless. Living in northern California’s wine country for the past 27 years, that’s really come in handy. We live and breathe wine here. I think I’ve taken for granted how nice it is to be able to know what I like in a wine and then translate that to the buying process.

But times change.

It’s not that easy any more. Advances in vineyard and winery technology have brought us all this really good, affordable red wine. It’s from everywhere in all price ranges. I’m not sure my thirty years of accumulated wine knowledge makes that much difference any more.

So I’m going to relax and choose my red wine with my right brain for a while. You know, the creative, subjective, intuitive side of me. I’m not sure how that will pan out, but I’m going to give it a shot. I realize that doesn’t help you with your red wine selection process, as was my original intent, but relax, my right brain will get back to you shortly.