Shows 18 and 19 are up!

Show 18 deals with Italian white wines, and Show 19 offers some guidance on wineries that produce consistently good results at all price points. Both episodes are waiting for you at the iTunes Music Store. Finally, I can take the lid off of the advertising sponsor: it's HBO, and they are advertising a new dramatic series, Big Love, which will premiere on March 12 immediately following The Sopranos (which has its season premiere that evening). Big Love follows the life of a polygamist and his three wives, their seven kids and three new houses. It stars Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin and Harry Dean Stanton. That's quite a cast, and it ought to be...interesting. Whether this will be the next Sopranos or Six Feet Under remains to be seen, but it's hard to disagree with the idea that this is a very unusual idea for a television show. I'm really excited to pick up a sponsor like HBO, even though the show has nothing to do with wine. I see it as a vote of confidence in this podcast. If you could, if the Big Love ad is finally running on the right sidebar, please click through just so the ad agency and HBO have reason to believe they made a good decision to select Wine for Newbies as one of the twenty or thirty podcasts to participate in this advertising campaign. And even though it's really off topic, if the show sounds interesting, you may wish to read Jon Krakauer's book "Underneath the Banner of Heaven." Although the book deals mostly with a horrible murder that took place in a Mormon family, it does a very good job of telling the historical story of Mormonism and its struggles with polygamy. (Krakauer wrote another excellent book, "Into Thin Air," about a disastrous climb up Mt. Everest.) Thanks to everyone for their continued support. I hope you enjoy the two new episodes, and if the advertising bothers you, don't worry--this is only a two week campaign, so next weekend's episodes will have another ad from HBO for Big Love, and then that's it. Have a great week, everyone!