New to everything....

[Innkeeper]

My experience “ITB” occurred during the last five and half years of my 26 year Air Force career. I was the director of MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation) for the Strategic Air Command. In this capacity I was responsible, among other things, for 25 package stores and 60 military clubs. During the entire time we had a program whereby we encouraged these facilities to get in touch with their local wineries. The motivation for this effort was to introduce personnel to wine as a dinner beverage. By offering wine tastings on base or at the wineries our folks found that there was alternative to the ubiquitous bottle(s) of brew. On staff visits to the various bases we frequently visited the local wineries ourselves. This gave me an appreciation of the variety of wine this country offers.

That job also gave me the opportunity to peruse the monthly wholesale listings of the Omaha based wine distributors. This provided wonderful insight into how much retailers had to pay for the wine they sold. Amazing!

My wife Beverly and I still have an appreciation of local wines and we frequently stop at wineries during our travels. Although all the New England states have very fine local wines to offer, the best close by wine region to us is the Finger Lakes. We travel their as often as we can, buy directly from wineries over there. You may notice that the majority of postings on the East Coast thread are mine, just as VH has most of the posts on the Loire thread.

Having said all that, we do love wines from all over the country and the world. We have belonged to the Tobin James Wine Club for decades, and get at least one shipment a year from Easton/Terre Rouge. International wines that we can’t find around here are usually purchased from Pops Wines or Chambers Street, both in New York City.