A belated but very happy Thanksgiving greeting to my loyal and wonderful readership. In this season, I am extraordinarily grateful for you, my readers: for your enthusiasm in reading my blog and for tolerating my dry Irish wit, wonkish tendencies and nonsensical banter. Thanks for journeying with me.

My recent mainland sojourn brought me to the annual Wine Bloggers Conference, held this year in the Northern California town of Santa Rosa. A weekend of wine, blogger training and best of all, fellow wine enthusiasts! I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with like-minded bloggers who share my passion for food, wine and storytelling. And now I want to share their writings with you! This post introduces a few of my favorites.

Many readers, including myself, are extremely blessed. Wine brings joy to many of us, and we have the financial means to procure it without much thought or hesitation. With it we celebrate, we toast, we fellowship with friends. Wine is a catalyst for festivity, merriment and conversation.

We colloquially discuss wine in terms of varietal, region or style. This week, however, we are painfully reminded that each glass is unequivocally defined by people. It represents farmers. It represents families. It represents communities with proud traditions and heritage. People like us; families and communities like our own.

Too many of those who labor tirelessly to produce our favorite wines presently find themselves injured, homeless, and with their livelihood entirely dismantled. A state of affairs that is difficult to fathom.

In lieu of a regular post this week, I am compelled to pause and reflect upon, and to raise awareness of, the devastating wildfires sweeping across Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties of Northern California.