Every Sunday Preston Vineyards in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley makes you an offer you haven’t heard in years unless you’ve been prowling the back roads of Europe’s wine regions. The winery will fill up one of their three-liter jugs with a special Preston blend called “Guadagni Red” for just twenty-five bucks. And no, that is not a misprint, and yes, the wine is good. Very good, as a matter of fact. It’s a blend of Zinfandel, Cinsault, Carignane and Mourvèdre named after the late Jim Guadagni, the winery’s first neighbor as well as a mentor.

Preston, one of the few wineries around that is actually downsizing on purpose, has set aside about 2,000 gallons of the wine (which is most emphatically not leftover wine from other projects they stress) for the “Jug Sunday” experience. For directions or if you have any questions, give them a call at (800) 305-9707.

The names are enough to make you look for it in the stores, or better yet, to drive to American Canyon south of Napa and see for yourself: Wild West Wildflower, Star Thistle, Orange Blossom, Clover & Alfalfa, Manzanita, Wild Blackberry, Pumpkin Blossom, the list goes on and on and the wildflower naming continues, with Napa Valley Wildflower then Sonoma, Marin, South Bay, East Bay, even City Limits (San Francisco) and CIA (the herb gardens at the Culinary Institute in St. Helena). All of them are names of honeys from Marshall’s Farm, painstakingly collected by beekeeper Spencer Marshall and marketed and bottled by his multi-talented wife Helene and various friends, relatives and helpers. It really is a hands-on operation and the resulting product is unadulterated,100% pure and unfiltered.

While stores, shops and farmers markets sell the Marshall’s honey, if you are in the area and are a honey lover (or want to try something different) make it a point to stop by the Flying Bee Ranch, home of the new Honey House and Farm Store. The history of the company is worth the visit even if the honey itself were not so delicious. We also agree with the writers at Gourmet magazine that the honey straws they make are a particular delight. And knowing how Spencer Marshall searches out hives in places you would not even think would support a single bee, and then makes honeys that you will never find anywhere else, is another real treat. Cooking suggestions (Wild West Wildflower Honey – a dark, almost molasses-like delight – in a barbecue sauce or glaze, for instance) are freely dispensed. They also make up small bottles, perfect to take home with you, or to give as gifts.

Marshall’s Farm Honey is located at 159 Lombard Road in American Canyon about ten minutes south of the City of Napa. They can be reached at (800) 624-4637 or visit them at www.MarshallsHoney.com.

As we’ve said in the past, there is something special about taking home a bottle from a winery, a bottle of something you can’t find – at any price – anywhere else. And that is the case with these three brandies from the famous sparkling wine house Domaine Chandon. All three are done in the traditional manner, using alambic pot stills and aging in small, new and used French oak casks for a minimum of nine years. They also use the time-honored Ugni Blanc and Folle Blanche varietals in their blends.

As might be expected, availability is limited. There were only a thousand cases of the Chandon Red Brandy ($39 per 750ml bottle), 400 of the Gold Reserve ($75) and barely half that for the justly coveted Blue Royale ($100) which comes, as it should, in an elegant blue velvet bag. All the bottles are hand-numbered, register 80 proof and have wax-dipped tops that, along with the almost hand-blown feel of the bottles and the handsome labels, make them stand out.

So how do they taste? All are complex, which should come as no surprise, and each is elegant in its own way. The Red offers subtle hints of fruit and white chocolate, and while it is assertive it is also very well-rounded on the palate. The Gold is also quite accessible, with friendly overtones of dried fig, oranges, chocolate and black cherry. The Gold is the most complex of the three, a serious brandy with a simplicity of purpose that is stunning. As we have said in the past, if you do buy one as a gift you might as well buy a second one for yourself. Otherwise we’ll give odds that your friends will never get that one bottle. They are too rare a treasure to give away unless you keep one for your own cellar.

Traveling with wine can be a tricky proposition, especially when it comes to airports, where the fate of your wine is likely to be determined at a busy security checkpoint. Now there is a solution. You simply check your wine through as luggage and forget about it until you reach baggage claim at the other end, whether your final destination is Duluth or Dublin. But how do you make sure that your bottles of vintage Cabernet Sauvignon arrive as safely as you? Try the Wine Safe, which has been well tested by the wine merchants at the Bounty Hunter in Napa.

Triple insulated with rubber and foam it looks secure even from a distance, with a skin of aircraft aluminum and an industrial-strength handle. It is meant to handle abuse from baggage handlers and now that the twelve-bottle size is available with wheels and a handle it is even easier to get around with. All that and a lifetime guarantee. The Bounty Hunter is located in Napa, and on the Internet at www.bountyhunterwine.com. Sizes range from the two-bottle model ($129.95) to one that carries a full case ($259.95) or $329.95 for the wheeled model.

It’s not enough that the brandy produced at RMS Brandy Distillery in the Carneros part of Napa is a terrific temptation by itself, produced as it is in gleaming, custom-fitted copper tanks, done in the Alambic method made famous by their French parents, Rémy Martin. (Should you need to know this, the Alambic distillation was perfected in Cognac, France, over four centuries ago and remains the method required to produce the world’s best brandy.) Now, on top of that, they have set their sights on dessert. It seems they have no shame or restraint whatsoever, and we are all the happier for it, we must admit.

In addition to their very limited production Pear de Pear Liqueur, produced from Bartlett pears, with a rich fragrance of fresh pears and a deep texture, they have added a brandy chocolate sauce. Anettes’s Chocolates in Napa produces the sauce, combining rich chocolate with RMS’s special reserve brandy (the final product is 4.8% alcohol by volume). For a reasonable $18.50 you get twelve and a half sinful ounces of nectar which can be poured over ice cream or cheese cake, dip strawberries or other fruit in, or simply let your imagination run wild. Available only at the distillery, it is a fitting end to the most regal meal.

RMS Brandy Distillery is located at 1250 Cuttings Wharf Road in the Carneros region west of the City of Napa. They are open seven days a week. For more information contact them at (707) 253-9055 or visit their website at www.rmsbrandy.com.

There may be cheese knives that feel better in your hand, but if there are we haven’t come across it yet. The Picado is designed for use with hard cheeses, but it also works well with softer cheeses, sausages, pizza and for mincing herbs and onions. At 6.3 inches overall it has considerable heft, feeling like a piece of well-built machinery.

From C. Hugo Pott Culinado it has the clear lines, functional design, unassuming beauty and utilitarian purpose that you expect from knives from Solingen, Germany.

Available from Dean & Deluca and other kitchen and specialty stores, it retails for about $125. Is it worth it? Pick it up one time and decide. You simply will not want to put it down.

Miles apart from the Picado cheese knife in sensory terms, the Lamina cheese slicer, for soft cheeses, nonetheless shares one thing with it: it is a perfect example of form follows function. Never mind that we had to grab it from the hand of a guest who was about to use it to open a bottle of Boonville Amber, it reduces the practice of slicing cheese to the most basic elements: slicer and cheese. That’s it, no more, just one piece of metal with a sharp blade and a hole to hang it by.

From the Simplicitas line imported by Ameico, they offer (in their own words) “evident, unthought-of solutions to the problems of everyday life.” In this case we have to agree with them. Use the Lamina (or its even smaller companion, the Liber cheese slicer) and you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.