The Wine Commonsewer

The Great Bevmo Five Cent Sale

Gentle Readers,

Sounds like a great deal. Buy one bottle get a second identical bottle of wine for one of Sammy Hagar's nickels. Except.....

Alamos Malbec:

BevMo! Price: 19.99

10.99 here 9.99 here, inflation has begun in earnest, these wines were 9.99 and 8.99 respectively less than six months ago.

Yellow Tail Shiraz:

BevMo! Price: 15.99

Cost Plus Price: 7.99 (6.99 here)

For the record, Yellow Tail Shiraz isn't my wine but Henderson is OK with it. You may be as well.

Been hearing about this joint for a while now and we were pleased when one opened recently just a mere nine miles down the godforsaken ever-brown dusty hill at the Crossings. BevMo! has a nice, well organized selection of wines, a friendly staff, and the store is cool. Yet, TWC remains somewhat unimpressed.

A casual stroll down the aisles leaves the impression that the prices just aren't that great. At best, they're just okay. The high end stuff is over priced. The mid range Saturday night red that one hopes will persuade the blond in the corner loft to see you in an entirely more romantic light is also overpriced.

Hot Tip: Sometime contributor, Milton, insists that the bottom shelf at BevMo! is where the bargains are.  

Like the man said, ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances. I'll keep mine, thankee. I'm a capitalist myself but I fail to see the merit in making things appear to be something they aren't. Sure, we all want good value, but absent Peronista style inflation, Yellow Tail Shiraz will never be a sixteen dollar wine. Cue the rumble of printing presses in DC. Until next year, anyway. [rimshot!!]

What you, the wine consumer, is getting is two bottles at market price. $7.99 each. May not be BevMo!'s market price, but it certainly is somebody's market price.

As always, we appreciate your patronage.

TWC

Former Employer Refuses to Give You a W-2. What Do You Do?

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

I should have written this sooner. In this economy, with businesses collapsing around us in disarray there is bound to be an uptick in missing W-2's.

The caller queried Bill Handel about what happens when an employer doesn't issue a W-2. True to his schtick that Handel on the Law offers marginal legal advice, Bill was, well, marginal. Entertaining, but wrong. This was a particularly egregious effort by the employer to screw the employee. Not only was there no W-2 but the unemployment claim was denied when the employer claimed the guy had never been an employee.

Bill sent the poor guy to some obscure state agency with a little sympathy and a flippant remark about how the caller had been defrauded of his tax withholding. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Without belaboring the background details and getting into the civil and possible criminal ramifications facing the employer for not paying the trust fund taxes, ie, the money withheld from the employees paychecks, here is how you handle this:

• IRS and state agencies permit you to reconstruct your earnings and tax withholdings from your pay stubs. Piece of cake if you have your final pay stub. It will show all year-to-date tax withholdings. You simply transfer those totals to a Substitute W-2 form, complete the explantions, and file it with your tax return.
• Turbo Tax and Tax Cut include the Substitute W-2 form with instructions as part of the software.
• Your unemployment claim can be easily substantiated by presenting your paystubs showing tax withholdings.

Bill missed this entirely and it is important:

• The  employee is credited with all income tax and social security withholdings. This true regardless of whether the employer pays those taxes she withheld from your check to the government.

As Always,

TWC

The Last Poppy

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

TWC missed out on Milton's trek across the Santa Rosa Plateau to the vernal pools Saturday. Later that morning, on the plateau behind us, I noticed the poppies are fading.

 

These hills were incinerated by the wildfires a couple of years ago

The Boy loves the way the afternoon breezes ripple the knee high grasses and wildflowers that just last week were as green as Scotland. Touches my heart that he notices. The rocky hillsides were carpeted with brilliant golden poppies, yarrow,  and purple lupine, all now going to a different kind of golden. The golden of conflagrations to come. The golden for which our state was christened. Didn't quite realize the film was over but the credits seem to be rolling.

I don't miss the mustard plants though. Not many this year, thank the Lord for small favors.

 

Poppies at the Casa. Granite is forever. Poppies? Just a few weeks.

As Ever,

TWC

Earth Hour From The Casa

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Looking west toward Moxie's place in Los Angeles across the lights of Corona, Ca

As Ever,

TWC

Tonight: Turn Out The Lights

Gentle Readers,

8:30 PM tonight marks the appointed Earth Hour. Denizens of Spaceship Earth are expected to turn out the lights and turn off the flat screen for one hour in order to show our solidarity with climate change. Wait. That didn't sound right.

They should have scheduled this to coincide with Idol, Lost, or the NBA Playoffs. That'd separate the wheat from the chaff in one big hurry.

Come on, don't be a pie. Flip that switch and do it tonight. Do it for global warming, do it for Gaia, but most of all do it for our greenest president ever.

Course if you're dead serious about saving the planet, skip the one hour hiatus and make it permanent. Nothing wrong with going to bed with chickens. Early to bed, early to rise, or so The Man said.

As Always

TWC

Tip of the glass to Irene W

Sage Bloom

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

I hadn't noticed until Wednesday but one of the sages was in bloom. The herbs at the Casa aren't fond of winter but they put up with it because it's short lived. The thyme and the sage kicked a little about the snow flurries but got over it and as the weather has warmed they've shaken off the doldrums.

This is ordinary culinary sage that you would use in sausage stuffing or to season a pork roast with.

While fresh sage works with a wide variety of foods, sage is to pork what red wine is to TWC, just perfect.

As Ever,

TWC

A Message From the Obama Administration & the CONgress To Your Kids

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

In clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition of involuntary servitude, the Senate rubber stamped the House bill calling for universal, voluntary, mandatory national service to the Reich from Amerikka's yoot. Once the bills are reconciled, there isn't much doubt that the president will affix his John Hancock with a flourish.

Article XIII Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Given that the Supremes have repeatedly signed off on the validity of the military draft, universal servitude will fly as well. 

IN OTHER NEWS

One week after the president said that DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensers would halt.....wait for it.....the Feds raid a San Francisco dispensary. 

A source in San Francisco city government who was informed about the raid said the DEA's action appeared to be prompted by alleged financial improprieties related to the payment of sales taxes.

Just asking, but when did state sales tax enforcement become a federal matter?

As Ever,

TWC

Secretary Geithner Likely to Flush Another Trillion Monday Morning

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Irrespective of the latest installment in the Obama administration plan to destroy the dollar, please understand that the existing GWB/O'Blama/CONgressional bailouts that have already taken place ensure a significant round of inflation on the horizon. Some claim this process has already begun. TWC is in that camp. Evidence? The Boy and I spent twenty-two bucks for breakfast at IHOP last week (plus five cash for the waitress, er, server). And just try finding a wheelbarow at Lowes or Home Depot.

Four Five Billion Marks, Weimar Republic circa 1923
This and eleven ten more just like it would buy a first class postage stamp

UPDATE: And that's how bad the inflation was. This was a Four Billion Mark note when I posted it last night.

As Always,

TWC

Gerald Barzan on Taxation Without Representation

Taxation WITH representation ain't so hot either.

The Swallows Return to Capistrano The Birth of California Wine The Kosmik Kid Lights Yet Another Candle & Zorro!

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

By all accounts the swallows returned today to Mission San Juan Capistrano and the town of its namesake, which was once the center of life in Orange County Ca. Few locals know it, but Dana Point, named for Richard Henry Dana, was once called San Juan Point.

St Joseph Day also marks former hippie and software developer the Kosmik Kid's birthday.

Of singular importance, Mission San Juan Capistrano represents the dawn of California's wine culture. The first vineyards in Alta California were planted here.

Mission Grapes were crushed in this adobe vat by young Juaneno (Acagchemem) Indian men whose legs and feet were carefully washed beforehand and who wore freshly laundered clothing. Once crushed, the juice flowed into an adobe vat (tank?) in an adjacent room for fermentation.

Anchored off San Juan Capistrano in 1825, Captain John Hall recorded in the ship's log that.....

Good wine can be procured from the Friars, both white wine and red, the latter being of fine flavor.

Mission grapes (Criolla) were of uncertain origin, but recent DNA testing has linked the Mission grape to the Listan Prieta grape of Castile Spain, which is now largely extinct as a result of phylloxera outbreaks of the 19th century.

In the end, although the Mission grapevine is a heavy producer, by the mid-1800's it was supplanted by Zinfandel, a much better wine grape, which some consider native to California (it isn't).

Several years ago Zin was designated as the official California Historic Grape and while Zinfandel has a long and storied history, TWC says the Mission Grape is truly California's Heritage Grape.

Fountain & Gardens at Mission San Juan Capistrano

Aside from the birds of fame and the shadowy, largely unknown tale of the Mission grape, San Juan Capistrano gave birth to the legend of Zorro with The Curse of Capistrano first serialized in 1919 and ultimately leading to a string of feature films.

The legend may have been inspired by the life of William Lamport, an Irish noble who immigrated to then-colonial Mexico and took the name Guillen Lombardo. His sympathies lay with the mestizos and the native indian populace. A supporter of the Mexican independence movement, his name turned up frequently on the King of Spain's enemies list.

Eventually imprisoned as an enemy of the crown, he escaped in a very Zorro-esque manner later spending many evenings leaving his mark and anti-Spain graffiti on the walls of Mexico City's buildings.

A dashing ladies man, his myriad affairs included many married senoritas as well as their daughters. Ultimately he was imprisoned after he was caught bedding the wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico. The sentence? Seven years in prison followed by burning at the stake (Dude, that is harsh). As the bonfire was lit it is said that Senor Lombardo broke free of his bonds and strangled himself before the flames could consume him, thus denying his captors the pleasure of his suffering.

As Ever,

TWC

Photo Credits: TWC