The wine world knows that France, Italy and California produce the best red wines.  The top two wine producers switch between Italy and France, with Italy now #1.  #'s 3 and 4 also change, with Spain today producing more than the USA.  Australia is #5.  China is rapidly rising, and is  affecting wine prices in other ways,  too.  Interestingly enough, though  world wine production is dropping , and  is lower than 1961.  Some blame climate warming. Today I will focus on the best red wines.  Some day I'll talk about the finest white wines. France:  Bordeaux and Burgandy. More specifically, there are two blends of Bordeaux, the left bank uses mostly Cabernet Sauvignon and right mostly Merlot. Burgandy is almost always Pinot Noir, although White Burgandy is Chardonnay. Italy:  Piedmont for Barolo and Tuscany for Brunello de Montalcino. California:  Napa Valley and parallel Sonoma Valley, Cabernet Sauvignon and red blends. ...

The world is into our 5th wave of COVID-19 deaths, and perhaps 6th, if you count two in that middle wave  Note, however, that there seems to be a definite decline of new deaths in our current surge: However, if you look closely at the  Worldometer  data: The USA yesterday dwarfed other countries in new cases with 171,125 and new deaths with 1761. India and the UK were at around 37,000. Russia had the second most new deaths with 789 and Mexico was next with 730. Florida had the most new cases in the country with 17,854, but did not report how many new deaths they had.   Texas had 17,208 new cases and 412 new deaths, the most in the nation, if higher than Florida.  This rate is 14 new deaths/million population. The world new deaths/million yesterday was around 1.0.  India was only at 0.2/million. Russia had 5.4 new deaths/million. Hawaii had 5.8 new deaths/million, higher than Russia, which yesterday had the second-most new deaths in the world. What is w...