Minstrel and Muse

#WineMuse There are so many wines and so little time, how do you know where to start?  Wine Muse hosts Linda Rez and William Pollard invite four wine industry experts to the #ThirdThursday show to share their favorite wines LIVE. Guests include: Tina Morey from Protocol Wine Studios is a Certified Sommelier working on her Master of Wine. A self-described "wine peddler", Tina curates for the wine subscription services Le Metro Wine and Protocol wine studio. She has an educational online program of the same name, #WineStudio. James Melendez, The Wine Guy, was the National Food and Wine Marketing Manager at Cost Plus World Market, and he's been a writer and contributor to several online sites, as well as chief contributor at JamestheWineGuy.wordpress.com April Yap-Hennig from The Sacred Drop is a Certified Sommelier and holds a Masters in Viticulture and Enology from the University of La Rioja, Spain, and an MBA from Purdue University.  She's lived all around the world and is currently in Oregon working as Director of Marketing and Hospitality as well as a wine and travel writer for SacredDrop.com. Frank Morgan, Drink What You Like, is the author of the DrinkWhatYouLike wine blog that he started six years ago to chronicle his travel experiences and to share the wine news in Virginia. His site was recently named one of the top wine news blogs.  He also contributes at the local broadcasting station, Snooth, and several other wine magazines. Music by The Terns.

Host Linda Rez welcomes two hot Seattle music acts, Clearly Beloved and singer/songwriter Andrea Desmond.  We play the music and let them tell the stories.

Host Linda Rez and cohost, Barbara Davis, from Books, So Many Books, have an in-depth conversation with former National Poet Laureate Robert Hass about his life and poetry. Robert Hass was born in San Francisco in 1941. He attended St. Mary's College and Stanford University. His books of poetry include Time and Materials, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and the National Book Award in 2008; Sun Under Wood, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996; Human Wishes; Praise, for which he received the William Carlos Williams Award in 1979; and Field Guide, which was selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets Series. Hass also worked with Czeslaw Milosz to translate a dozen volumes of Milosz's poetry, including the book-length Treatise on Poetry and, most recently, A Second Space. His translations of the Japanese haiku masters have been collected in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. His books of essays include Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1984, and Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns, 1997-2000. From 1995 to 1997 he served as poet laureate of the United States. He lives in northern California with his wife, the poet Brenda Hillman, and teaches English at the University of California at Berkeley.

It's #WINEMUSE #3RDTHURSDAY and hosts Linda Rez and William Pollard will be pouring and drinking Port while examining the history and misconceptions behind this rich and elegant libation. What is Port and how is it different from other wines? What is the history of Port and its connection to the Brits? How do they make it, how many styles do they make, and what are the BEST Ports? And for those counting calories for their New Year's resolutions, How many calories does it have? The hostswelcome Oscar Quevedo, from Quevedo Port Wine in Portugal.  Oscar represents a long and well respected wine-making family from the Douro region of his country.  His energy and love for making Port is contagious. Join The Wine Muse hosts for a fun night exploring Port Wine.

Every year during the holidays Minstrel and Muse searches for the "Best New Christmas Album".  This year we were delighted to find the beautiful and emotional "Forever Christmas" by David Lanz and Kristin Amarie.  It is full of music you will love, some traditional and some original. David Lanz is well-known for his many New Age albums that have sold over a million copies.  His work has been nominated for a Grammy Award and his album, Cristofori's Dream, was #1 on the Billboard Chart for 27 weeks.  Kristin, David's partner, is a singer/songwriter with a recent accalimed album of her own, Notes From a Journey. David and Kristin share their story and love for Christmas as well as their advice for everyone pursuing a creative life. Join us for a musical, mystical journey of Christmas memory, love, and creative passion.