New fridge.

It's amazing how many tired, out-of-date condiments can accrue and lurk in the back of ones refrigerator.  It took me almost 2 hours today to organise, purge and dispose of a lot of undesirable sauces, relishes and spreads.  A 2009 mustard, anyone?  I didn't think so.
The upside of all of this is now I can fill my new refrigerator with a lot of yummy stuff and the necessities of life - which I have started making a shopping list of.  Have to have my priorities straight.
Exciting life, huh?

Wine shopping: Lucchesi style.

What a wine shop!  The Vini Liquori Vanni, across from the fountain on the Piazza San Salvatore, Lucca, is a great establishment for any oenophile to visit.  The above ground part of the shop has a fairly extensive inventory of wines from all over Tuscany, including the wines of Lucca from the Comune di Montecarlo about 8 miles east of Lucca.  But it is the cellar of this extraordinary establishment that had me oohing and aahing at every turn of every corner in this subterranean vino-paradise.
I wasn't the only impressed person in the cellar (actually this was my second visit and on my first visit I had had the entire place to myself).  From the very depths of this brick-and-bottle clad cellar, I heard the strains of American accents (oohing and aahing also), so I made my way towards them.  Three Chicagoans were on a mission to find a bottle of Castello Di Ami, 1999 L'Apparita to add to their collection.  I know this because I had a quick chat with them, but there was no eye contact as we were all too busy looking at great wine.  I had already done my meagre wine-shopping (weight restriction, drat), so I didn't buy anything.  However, the folks from the Windy City were last spotted making their way up to the cash register, cradling some vinous plunder in each of their arms.

Majestic.

With the closure of Napa's one decent wine shop imminent, J V Wine & Spirits, the availability of any wines in Napa other than local wines will be severely limited.  I mean, where will I now get my supply of Inama Soave and other Italian, and Spanish, wines? The wine selection in the local Whole Foods store is OK, but I really don't feel like paying Whole Foods prices, commonly referred to as Whole Pay-Cheque, all the time.  I admit, I've been a bit spoiled by taking advantage of the generous inter-winery discounts that local wineries extend to industry personnel and I buy a lot of wine directly from the producers.

With the wine-retail experience on my mind, I stopped off at Thud's local Majestic Wine Warehouse today to have a peek at what they had to offer. Majestic is the UK's biggest wine retailer that specialises in selling mixed wines by the case, or the half-case. Seeing as I didn't want to buy six bottles of wine I left without purchasing anything, but I did have a chat to a very well informed assistant who seemed to know his stuff - and was a little impressed with the fact that I worked at a winery in the Napa Valley.  The selection was fair, the prices seemed reasonable and the assortment of California wines was slim - as expected (although a Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 2009 Karia Chardonnay was a bit of a surprise).
With Majestic close by, and also a branch of the Cork's Out chain, and the wine departments in supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury's, Thud has a larger choice of outlets at which to procure wine than I do.  Surely there's something wrong with this picture.