Date: June 04, 2010 @ 9:51 AM

Summer's Approaching

Rumor has it that summer is here. OK, it has been raining, but I know that you can’t be a winemaker unless you are an optimist. According to the calendar, it is time for all those summer things: graduations, good weather, barbecues, swimming, SPF 45 and a fun book.

Graduations: I have attended and listened; the graduation speakers were wonderful this year. Yes, summer must be close.

Weather: It continues to toy with us. If we get a bit less rain and a bit more sun, I will believe it is summer. (Californians and winemakers like to whine about the weather even though everyone else loves our weather.) I was just in Iowa . . . can you appreciate humidity and wind? I am from Oregon . . . rusting is an alternative to tanning.

Barbecue: The grill works, and so far this year our neighbor hasn't called to see if everything is OK (due to the amount of smoke—he only did that once last year—not sure how hot the grill got as the thermometer only goes to 600 degrees.)

Swimming Advice: If drinking wine by the pool, go for those soft-squeeze glasses that don't have a stem. (Sort of like Charmin—you may want to, but don't squeeze them!) They look cool, don't break, and you can even smell the wine in them.

Books: The real thing that I want to find each summer is fun reading. We aren't talking any of that self-help stuff. (Most self-help books are good at making one feel guilty that he hasn't cured cancer or been more like Alexander the Great. Of course, by the time Al was my age, he had conquered the known world and had been dead for twenty years.)

I read a fun book by Spencer Quinn during the winter and have been saved from conducting extensive research for my summer reading because Spencer just came out with the sequel. If you don't like suspense and detective books, go open a bottle of Far Niente '08 Chardonnay and log onto Amazon to see, “If you liked this then try…” (It's not a fun way to browse books but wine helps the process.)

While I never figure out "whodunit" before the author takes pity on me, the poor reader, and tells me what really happened, I didn’t feel badly about it with this book because the narrator is a dog. I am not sure that Chet, the dog, really gets it, but he has the perfect dog/man point of view to make this a great summer book. He likes riding shotgun in an old Porsche and eating slim jims, and isn’t great with color recognition.

I can recommend “Dog on It” and have just started the sequel, “Thereby Hangs a Tail.”

Chet is the perfect dog for a wine blog. In the sequel, he pays attention to a cork he found when he was looking for tidbits behind the garbage can.

"All I spotted was a wine bottle cork. Not food, but I picked it up and started gnawing anyway, hard to explain why. Meanwhile, I tried to remember the last wine-drinking occasion. Had to have been on a night Susie came over—she liked red. Wine smells are pretty interesting—even humans are onto that. I love when they stick their little noses in the glass and go on about blackberries and chocolate and lemongrass—trust me, they haven't got a clue."

I am smart enough to not comment or add to Chet’s assessment of wine but can recommend the rest of the book, best enjoyed by the pool, with barbecue, plenty of sunscreen and the right wine—no matter how petite your nose.

It seems clear that Chet could become a wine critic if the detective thing doesn’t work out.

I recommend supporting your local book store and looking for “Dog on It” or “Thereby Hangs a Tail” both by Spencer Quinn.