Before Retirement, Vance Petrunoff Was Selling Bulgarian Wines from Sonoma, CA

Christmas passed quietly and the last few days of the year are slowly devouring the crumbs of time left on the calendar table. I still have more than 120 days left with a reference of what happened exactly one year ago, when I shared time and love with Ruby. At one point I will run out of that and will be able only to refer to the pain of being alone, the guilt of the loss. What I remember now, are the mornings when we will wake up together in my bed, I will turn to my left, move closer and put few long and warm kisses on her naked back and murmur “good morning Ruby”. She would stir and stretch, give a little moan and in a little while say “good morning Venci” with almost silent joy, half asleep, but happy of the way the day is brought to live. Then I will envelope her in my arms and legs and kiss her neck and we will be so hot that we have to break it or just engage. I met her in my yoga class, she was one of the best there and after 4 years of practice she had mastered some of the po...

All I want for Christmas Is You....

End of an awful year, I am so very happy it is about over. And do you know the news... W. cannot book any speaking gigs after leaving the White House, I wonder why...? I was selling VINI and grappa in Berkeley today, and took photos of a demonstration organized by the Grandmothers for Peace. I avoid Berkeley these days, but today I liked it. I liked the day as well, cold but clear and sunny. I am loosening up in blogging, alive again after the Google wars. Then I took Troy and Chris to Mary's Pizza on the plaza of Sonoma for dinner. They didn't know it, but it was basically a bribe after all the work they did in December for our sales on the Internet. And for desert we saw Slumdog Millionaire - very impressive beginning of the movie, go see it.

Blogger locked my blog! My blog is blocked, locked and shackled by Google (Do Not Evil Empire?) What the f*^k, as our Chicago mini-emperor says, I ask only $500,000 for this blog. The robot in/of Google believes that I am not just bitching after dark, but a program that I created, is spamming the Google Universe with my love proclamations for Ruby. No, it is me, Google. In any rate, I went shopping for Anika's Christmas present and for this sole purpose I went to an art opening at Lisa Kristine gallery in Sonoma and at the Art Guild. The good looking gal (?) is Lisa Kristine and she was so kind to sign her book I bought for Anika. After that I met her adopted child from Tibet and her life partner, a good looking brunette...I was surprised again even living in San Francisco Bay Area for more than 22 years. Then I met Zaza after her opening at the Sonoma Art Guild. With Zaza we share a friend of many years - Ogo, another painter, but I will not write about him now. Zaza was his girl...

My daughter Anika and I went to the Yves Saint Laurent fashion exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. We were joined by D'Arcy, Anika's childhood friend and the three of us had busy afternoon and a good time. The only problem was, wherever I looked I saw Ruby, we were together at the museum in February and everything remained me of her. It all started in the morning....I went to Bikram yoga and there was Jane, Jack's girlfriend (Jack plays with Ruby in the same jazz trio). I haven't seen her in 6 months, and she brought the past back to life. Why is it, that a 52 years old man in rather good shape, 200 lb of Bikram cooked flesh and life memories that span on 4 continents cannot get over this woman? I just cannot, and it makes all my work worthless, and life rather miserable even in the light of latest successes. Why there is no forgiveness? This was supposed to be the best year in my life, and I blew it from being in a hurry, not paying attention? She is reall...

The purpose of this blog is to showcase the progress in creating market share for the wines I import, and provide the latest information to consumers and to the trade. I have been careful lately and trying not to say too much, but the reality is, we are selling well in these tough times. Forget the opera and my personal feelings, after the award for Best Eastern European wine for VINI things are moving rapidly forward. Sales of the 3 leading Bulgarian brands are increasing rapidly in the current economic conditions. The sales chart you see reflects sales to out of state distributors, sales to CA retailers and Internet sales. The leader in sales is the VINI brand, awarded the Best Eastern European red wine at the World Value Wine Challenge ‘08. The 2007 vintage of white wines from Targovishte winery recently arrived and our best selling Muscat Grappa Peshtera also contributed to the increase of sales in this period.

I treated myself for the Holidays with an excellent San Francisco night at the Opera. My friends who took the opera class at the SRJC and I went to Max's Diner, next to the opera house and amongst a crop of opera fans had cocktails and dinner. Then we went to the opera and bumped into Bill Traverso from Santa Rosa and Kate Kennedy from Sonoma. Small world .... as we all know it, Sonoma county had a solid representation at the opera. I wish Ruby was there with me, but no such luck, she is long gone and that makes my life more painful then the story of La Bohème. Damn it, I miss her so much.

I think in order to feel better in these troubled times one has to go more often to see shows, opera, etc. I did go to the Marsh and what a wonderful performance I saw - The Squeeze Box. Ann Randolph was so funny and warm, really great. With pathos and humor, Randolph skillfully weaves together stories about working in a women's homeless shelter and the pursuit of true love। Her painfully funny portraits of the shelter's residents, and hilarious account of her hiking trip with Harold, the accordionist of her dreams, are beautifully drawn in this poignant tale about finding dignity and grace in unusual places. Randolph, who has been compared to the late Gilda Radner, uses her elastic face, acrobatic voice, and attuned body language to play male and female, young and old characters. With just a chair, banjo, guitar and lights, she brings to immediate, pulsing life her tragicomic journey of discovery and self-acceptance with remarkable freshness and vibrancy. Randolph wrote Squeez...