To quote the Bard, ”Now is the summer of our discontent, made inglorious by this summer sun of climate change.” In the history of record-keeping, 2023 has already earned the dubious distinction of being the hottest year ever recorded. From Death Valley in California to Xinjiang in China, and across Europe, temperature records are being […]

You cannot ignore the bounty of spring, every year I marvel at seeing those tiny buds break out into beautiful leaves that carry the fruit, each bud with its unique identity. Just looking at how nature repeats itself, every year is a miracle. It is truly awe inspiring and that repetition is our life blood, […]

I’m finishing up writing the Winter retrospective on the last day of winter, March 20th, 2023. When it comes to Winter I have to remind myself that here in Virginia we are on the 38th parallel.

If I were a man of all seasons my favorite season would be Autumn. I actually have a file entitled “Poetry and Thoughts of Fall.” That is no accident because of all the seasons autumn is the season of reflection, the season more than any other that tugs those heart strings not of remorse or […]

Veritas Summer Retrospective 2022 Well it’s all over now – summer that is. Labor Day is past, the kids are back to school, and harvest is in a damp swing.

Every spring I am filled with optimism. It’s spring; it’s opportunity; it is change, almost a rebirth as we watch those beautiful green buds burst forth.

Yes folks, this has been a Humdinger of a winter – we’ve had it all, blistering cold for days on end, power cuts, interstate highways blocked and the ever-lingering cloud over all our heads, COVID. Why I obsess about the weather. You may have noticed that my newsletters tend to obsess about weather and as […]

Now you may or may not know that one of the most successful segments of the English wine market is sparkling wine, known more familiarly to the Brits as English Fizz. Why am I writing about English Fizz when we are in Virginia? Because the manager of the Virginia Sparkling Company (VSC) is Elliott Watkins, […]

Revisiting the Sparkling Wine Saga As we all know, only sparkling wine that comes from the Champagne region of France is called “Champagne”. The rest of the world is stuck with using “sparkling wine” to describe their bubbly. And to their credit the “Champenois” have done a fantastic job branding Champagne. In so doing, they […]

“Now over everything the autumn light is thrown And every line is sharp and every leaf is clear…” – Poem in Autumn, by May Sorton It really does seem like the light is different in autumn. I’m not sure why. There seems to be a clarity often enhanced by the morning chill. The sun lights […]