I have a drinking problem.

Let me be more specific.

I have a drinking wine problem.

It’s difficult to explain the problem, but it’s grown beyond the available storage at my home and is now spilling over to my office at the Long Beach Post.

There are bottles of wine tucked into every corner and drawer and cubby in my office.

It piles up to the point where a couple of times a year I give up and start passing out bottles just to get it out of the way.

It’s under the reception desk and in the storage room.

The empty bottom drawer in the kitchen has at least half a dozen bottles.

Ok – maybe it’s not so difficult to explain: See, I have our winery shipments sent to the newsroom because someone 21+ needs to sign when it arrives. If I miss the delivery at home, it is a haul to get all the way to the UPS warehouse in Cerritos to fetch the wine box.

And that’s how it piles up at work.

Maybe my problem is that I’m not drinking wine fast enough?

Fortunately, I recently learned that Feb. 18 is National Drink Wine Day.

No, really. The goal is to ‘spread the love and health benefits of wine.’ Absolutely, I’m good with that goal.

I suggest kicking off this important national holiday with a moment of reflection, pondering the important questions, like, “Are breakfast wines a thing?”

Rieslings? Yes. Sauternes? Absolutely.

Sunrise is at 6:34 a.m. in Long Beach on Saturday. A bottle of the fantastic 2020 Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese with french toast? Bring it on. Cinnamon Rolls with a 2019 Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes? Boy, Howdy. It’s only a half bottle, after all.

The forecast tomorrow says it will be partly to mostly cloudy—much like me.

I think a gloomy day is great for light-bodied reds. Probably the 2019 Saint Damien Gigondas Les Souteyrades, which is mostly grenache, although I’m impatient and impulsive and should really let it bottle age a few more years.

If alliteration is your thing, for a cloudy day, go for the Cloudy Bay—a great sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. Another great white: the Joel Gott Sauvignon Blanc and a Wine Spectator top value for 2022.

But please, for National Drink Wine Day, trust the local experts, take their recommendations and shop in their shops:

  • Husband and wife founders and owners Randy and Dale Kemner have been in business at the Wine Country in Signal Hill (but basically Long Beach) since 1995.
  • Buvons Natural Wine Bar + Shop opened a year ago in the Zaferia District, helmed by two sommeliers who met in Paris in 2017 while individually pursuing their passions for French wine.
  • Waters Edge Winery has a new location in downtown Long Beach after first opening in 2019 with a unique model of sourcing its grapes from a variety of locations from Argentina to Australia but fermenting locally.
  • Risu sits right off the center of the Rainbow Bridge with an extensive wine list and extensive patio to match.
  • In 2014, District Wine ranked #62 on Yelp’s inaugural list of the top 100 must-try places in the United States and has been going strong in the East Village ever since.
  • And In Bixby Knolls, Willmore Wine Bar is a perpetual winner and Top 5 favorite among our readers in the annual Best of Long Beach awards.

Zaferia district coffee shop pivots to Good Time, an inclusive community hub