Speaking of wine racks, I noticed an interesting post over on Lifehacker today about a DIY wine rack made from recycled cardboard mailing tubes. All you need is a utility knife and a ruler to make this project from materials most of us have laying around. A great idea and unique use of discarded materials.

Support recycling and raise a glass to frugal wine storage at the same time.

I’ve been searching for the kind of post to return from my nearly 3 weeks of inactivity here and my blogging buddy Mark over at Uncorked emailed such a story. It seems some enterprising folks have cooked up some sort of “sports” bra aimed at athletic women who are aiming to tote a bit more in their chest on their workouts.

Yes, my friends, you can pack your wine, beer, spirits or diet Coke in your brassiere if you are so inclined. While you may be more popular during the tailgate party with such an accessory, I’d suggest you reserve this for later season games at Lambeau Field to keep the temperature of the beverage at “cellar temp.”

On one hand I’m amused; on the other, outraged as El Jefe from Twisted Oak certainly has this “wine rack” ground staked out.

I’m back with a lot more posts, podcasts and perspective.

Stay tuned.

I’m a bit late, but the prize winners for Menu of Hope 4 have been announced. Congratulations to Susan who was the lucky winner of my lot of 3 bottles of open-source Roussanne. A total of $91,188 was raised this year to support the the UN World Food Programme.

Many thanks to everyone who donated this year.

Pim has extended the Menu for Hope campaign through this weekend so there is still time to have a chance at the 3 bottles of open source Roussanne I’ve donated (WB17). She has also put together a handy bargain hunters guide to prizes available. You have until tomorrow morning EST to make your donation at the Firstgiving page.

Over $86,000 have been raised so far; let’s see how close we can get to $100,000!

By way of Dr. Debs, I learned that the Wall Street Journal’s wine writers Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher have released their Top Wine Bargains of 2007. It’s great to see these picks out behind the subscription wall (at least for now) but I was delighted to see their piece enhanced with a video podcast.

Longtime Winecast listeners and readers will remember that Gaiter and Brecher’s “Tastings” column was one of the inspirations for starting this podcast and wine blog. As I haven’t subscribed to the Journal for some time now, I have not kept up with their writing but will watch for their column online from now on.

Next week looks like “Delicious” wines of 2007… until then, enjoy their video:

Tonight at midnight Pacific time is last call for this year’s Menu for Hope. I’m pleased to see the total amount raised is $70,000 as I post this but there is still time to participate if you haven’t had the chance yet.

Thanks to all who have bid on my prize of 3 bottles of the Roussanne I’m making with the Winecast Crushpad group. If you want to try to get those bottles, just go here and make a donation referencing WB17 in the notes field. You best do this soon as there are only a few hours to go.

Ever want to break bread with New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov? How about your own private episode of Wine Library TV performed live in your house? These and many more prizes can be yours for as low as a $10 donation if you participate.

That’s right, it’s time for another Menu For Hope fund drive and I’m pleased to again participate by donating a prize for the raffle. Between now and midnight December 21st, you can bid on many great wine and food prizes including my lot of 3 bottles of the open source Roussanne I’m making at Crushpad. This is from my personal allocation and I’ll be happy to sign and/or personalize each bottle for the winner. Given the various wine shipping laws, I can only offer to ship this lot within the United States.

This project will only produce about 50 cases of a Rhone-inspired white blend made mostly from Roussanne grown in the noted Westerly Vineyard in the Santa Ynez AVA. We’ve just finished fermentation and now will let the wine settle in for aging in neutral oak barrels (pictured to the right). Our group will decide the final blend this spring which will also likely include Marsanne and Viognier.

The only way to buy this wine is to join my Crushpad group which includes a 1 case allocation. If you want less than a case, here’s a way to get 3 bottles for as low as a $10 donation (the wine sells for $18 per bottle plus I’m covering the shipping cost to your door so this is over a $60 value). Just bid on code WB17 for your chance to win this rare wine.

Menu For Home started four years ago and all donations support the UN World Food Programme. Last year nearly $61,000 was raised to feed the hungry around the world. I encourage all readers and listeners to support this effort by buying raffle tickets for this and many other prizes listed at Chez Pim and Vinography.

Donation instructions:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Remember the Winecast Roussanne prize code is WB17.

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday January 9 for the results of the raffle. I will also post here when the results are announced.

Thank you for your support of this worthy cause.

Clark Smith is stirring the pot once again with an expansive and thought provoking piece over at Appellation America. He takes on the wine industry’s aversion to openly discussing the role of technology in the winemaking process, amongst other issues.

In my time in the wine trade I’ve learned quite a bit of information that can’t be openly shared here for one reason or another. It’s good to see someone in the industry put the issues on the table and invite feedback. Check out the full article here.

For the record, I personally don’t think the use of technology robs a wine of it’s uniqueness, unless it’s overdone. I focus on what’s in the bottle and glass in front of me and not in the process of how it came to be made.

clipped from wine.appellationamerica.com

The wine search and review site Snooth has just raised $1M in financing as reported on Mashable. This is in addition to $300,000 of seed funding that was raised last year.

Of all the Wine 2.0 sites I’ve seen to date, I think Snooth shows the most promise to make a business out of this category. The design and feature set are very well done and the wine database is impressive. The only thing that remains to be seen is if they can attract enough users to make the social networking and ecommerce elements of Snooth viable. My guess is yes, but we shall see in coming months. My full review of Snooth will be posted here soon.

Congratulations, Philip and team on this milestone!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my short time in the wine industry, it’s controlled by special interests. Sometimes they are big distributors who are trying to protect their grip on the movement of wine, other times it’s State Legislators looking to boost taxes, but it’s always someone.

So I was pleased to see an email today from Tom Wark, fellow wine blogger but also Executive Director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, announcing their new blog (which is now linked on the sidebar here). Their mission is to open direct to consumer shipping for wine retailers and treat them the same as everyone else in the trade. This just makes sense so I support their efforts here.

Check out their new blog here and support your local specialty wine retailer.