Big Rick's Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack Podcast 3 23 24

I'm Big Rick Stewart, welcome to the podcast for the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. It's a radio show that I do every Saturday at KVYN 99.3 FM, 99.3 The Vine in Napa Valley. You can stream from 993thevine.com, you can search for KVYN on TuneIn, you'll hear fun music and great information including 10 at 10, a Beatles brunch at noon, songs from my days at Live 105, KFOD, KFOX, new songs and more, and you'll hear great information like this. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack, I'm Big Rick Stewart. Hey, I saw this list, I don't know why it appeared in my news feed of, you know, things I follow, but it's a little bit late, what is this, March now? But anyway, this is a list from Wine Enthusiasts, and this is their best red wines of 2023. Now they have wines from New Zealand and Italy and Australia and places. I thought I'd just concentrate on Napa and Sonoma. You want to hear this list? Yeah? All right. That's a pretty good thing to try, and here's what's kind of cool, they're not really all that expensive. Oh, there's a couple, but no, it's not crazy. All right, from Wine Enthusiasts, Best Sonoma Valley. They give it to the 2021 Pinot Noir Russian River Valley Convene by Dan Costa, who's been making wine around here for a long time and makes great wines. All right, so there you go. How about Napa Cabernet? They actually list two. Duckhorn 2019 Monitor Ledge Vineyard, their cab stop for that sells for about $125. And the Louis Martini 2019 Lot No. 1 sells for $200. Also on their list, the best Malbec comes from Aaron Wine Country. Over in Knights Valley, which is kind of over just a little past Calistoga there, Stolen Owl 2019 for $55 gets the best Malbec. And the best Zinfandel is from Carol's Shelton, the Albini Zinfandel 2020 Vintage sells for about $40. Now, in case you're wondering, Wine Enthusiasts says all products that they feature and they award here are independently selected, and they have wine tasters and more that check this out, and it's a blind tasting. And if you buy an ad in the magazine, they say it has nothing to do with the actual content of the editorial reviews. There you go. Some things to try. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 99.3 The Vine. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. I'm Big Rick Stewart. Hey, you ever fooled around with text to image, AI stuff? It is incredible. I mean, you can go to these websites and you just type in words like, you know, dog goes swimming, and then it generates an image of a dog swimming. Or you could say black dog goes swimming, or you could say black dog goes swimming at the ocean at sunset. And so as much details you put in is what you get back. And the images are pretty incredible, although, as the royal family in England has learned, they're not always perfect, but they can be really good. This is from Petapixel, which is a photography website. A study has shown that AI images of food look tastier than real food photos. Hmm. You got a restaurant or, you know, you're making a website for one or something. The study was published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, and it looked at how well participants who don't know if it's AI or not viewed these images of food. And it turns out that the ones that were generated by AI, people thought those looked the best. Now, that kind of makes sense, because maybe the AI makes, you know, the pasta sauce look better and the lighting is better. And if you just take a photo with your phone or even a camera, you know, you have to have the lighting perfect and all that stuff. So they kind of like the AI images better. The study warned against the use of AI-generated food images, saying there is a potential risk of exacerbating visual hunger, which could influence unhealthy eating behaviors. In other words, you know, it looks too good, I guess. Or create unrealistic expectations about food among consumers. So if you have a restaurant and you have this incredible photo of food that's AI-generated, if you don't serve food that looks really close to that, you could be getting some complaints. Anyway, it's just kind of interesting how all this technology is working and what are we really looking at? Is that real or is that AI? I'm real. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 99.3 The Box. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. I saw this story and it kind of answered some things that I've been wondering about. And if you're a fan of Jon Bon Jovi and Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, maybe you as well. It's from the New York Post. Jon Bon Jovi reveals why he's still not in contact with Richie Sambora, the other guy that helped found the band, lead guitar player and more. It's been 11 years. Jon Bon Jovi says, we're not in contact because he's not in the organization any longer. He goes on to say that doesn't mean that there's not love forever, but it's 11 years ago that he just didn't show up. They were like on tour. Actually, I think that one of the shows right after Richie Sambora started to not show up was in San Jose. And I went to that show like, wait, where's that guy playing guitar? It turned out that at that time he was having some personal problems and he has a daughter with his ex-wife, Heather Locklear, Ava. And so Richie Sambora said that, you know, I had to deal with some things. Richie says it wasn't a popular decision by any means, but there was no choice about it. I had a lot of consciousness work to do around my personal life and I had people around me that love me and it was a good thing I got through it. I realized my daughter needed me at that time and that's what happened. So I don't know that they're not friends anymore, but they're not, you know, in a professional relationship. We're probably going to find out more about this as Hulu is going to have a documentary coming out on April 26th called Thank You, Good Night, The Bon Jovi Story, chronicling their 40th anniversary with all these New Jersey seamstresses, including Bruce Springsteen and more in the documentary. Looking forward to it. All right, so, I mean, you know, we wish everybody the best and sometimes things happen. I'm Big Rick Stewart, The Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 99.3 The Vine. It's The Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Hey, I'm Big Rick Stewart. Thanks for hanging out today. We've got some news about a local winery that you may have visited up in Calistoga. They're actually expanding down to Paso Robles. Now, if you're going up Highway 29 and as you get into Calistoga, right before Lincoln on the right hand side, you may have been or seen Tank Garage Winery. They opened up in 2014. Now they're expanding to Paso Robles. This comes from Paso Robles Daily News and they say that Tank Garage Winery has announced on social media. The rumors are true. We are beyond stoked to announce that we're opening a second location in Paso Robles. We opened Tank Garage Winery in 2014 with the motto to never dream alone. At first it didn't seem like the world was ready for a retro California gas station winery pumping out unique blends and cool vibes, but the dreamers found us and so they're going to open up down there. It's going to be happening in the spring this year, so we're coming up pretty quick, and we're going to have all our cool things like lubrication bar, a rock and roll backstage lounge, and a few surprises. All right, congratulations. Always nice to see people doing well. That's the update from the folks at Tank Garage Winery. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 99.3 Divine. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. I'm Big Rick Stewart. All right. Ears up. Attention. All you people like to go camping, especially if you're a member of REI. We don't really have an REI too close to us. I know there's one in Concord, I think, Porta Madera, and in Santa Rosa, I think out in Sacramento, but in the Bay Area, the central Bay Area, there's a whole bunch down there, and you might be a member, and you don't have to have one next to you to take advantage of this. REI has bought land for a Grand Canyon campground. Aha. This is from a news source called AZ Central. REI and an adventure travel operator recently purchased 20 acres of land south of the Grand Canyon for a signature camp. What is this all about? I know you're interested. REI's Grand Canyon campground will be its fourth signature camp. Others are in Bryce Canyon, Zion, and the Great Smoky Mountains. These are pretty cool. They include lodging and tents with group cooking gear, cots, and sleeping pads provided. Campers supply sleeping bags and other personal belongings. Ten tents on platforms will be at this Grand Canyon campground. Amenities include a communal fire pit, picnic area, three communal restrooms, and showers. Thumbs up to showers when you go camping, right? They're talking about being ready to open in spring next year and operate from April through October. Camping trips at REI include meals at the campground prepared by the camp hosts and more. So how much does this kind of thing cost? Well, at Bryce and Zion, two amazing places. Two-night trips cost about $2,000 or about $2,400 if you're a non-member. All right. Just thought I'd give you one year's advance on this. I don't know how to get reservations or anything. I've got to figure that out. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 99.3 The Vine. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. All right. You want to hear a story about tipping at restaurants? All right. Now, I mean, if you're on either side, right, because you tip at restaurants, I mean, I hope most of the time, and maybe you accept tips because you work in a restaurant. All right. This is from a news source called Next Star, which is, they kind of aggregate lots of stories from lots of places. Diners tip more when this little detail is added to the check. What could this be? I'll tell you. This is from a study published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management. Did you know there was such a thing? I don't know. If you're in hospitality management, I guess you did. All right. Are you ready for it? Patrons can be encouraged to tip a little extra, see if this has ever happened to you, if there's a smiley face emoji printed alongside the suggested gratuity on their check. They said we hypothesize that if we gave them this smiley face, or if it's kind of cute, it could elicit a more positive reaction because, yes, you know, people are kind of like weary of tipping and all this stuff, and, you know, but if you have a smiley face, previous research has shown maybe that you process this differently in your brain, and it's an actual smiley face, and it provokes a more positive response. They say that people tipped an average of 11% more. Wow. And they go on to say that smiley face emoji, at least, might alleviate some of that aggravation, especially in settings where the waitstaff or service workers deserve a little extra. Basically, it ends up being a more positive experience for everybody. I would fall for this. If somebody put a smiley face on their check, I go, all right, I mean, you know, you acknowledge me a little bit. That's worth 11% more, I guess. You know, you make the call. That's crazy. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 99.3 The Vine. That's some of the great information you can hear on my Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. I'm Big Rick Stewart. Check out the show every Saturday, 99.3 FM in Napa Valley. You can also listen from 99.3thvine.com or KBYN on TuneIn. Thanks for checking out the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack podcast.