We’ve got an official day for just about everything from dance to dogs, so why not a day to honor the culinary delights of pairing food and vino and the community this tradition creates? 

President Thomas Jefferson believed that wine should be served with dinner every night, but his efforts to achieve this goal and get Americans to less of the “harsher spirits” didn’t go much better than his attempts at winemaking. But times have changed and today, August 15th, 2011, is the first “Drink Wine with Dinner Day," and Jefferson would be proud.

Veteran wine writer, Rosina Wilson, a major force behind Drink Wine With Dinner Day, remarked that there has been “no official celebration to bring wine to the table that unites like-minded people who love wine, love food, and love how much they can enhance each other”. So she’s asking everyone out there to plan something, whether it be an upscale dinner with fancy pairings or a romantic dinner at home for two, to recognize the occasion and share it with the world via social media and on her website. She'll be heading to a BBQ at Sierra Vista Vineyards, one of many wineries with a special event for this new celebritory day, and invites you to join her. 

August 15th was selected to pay tribute to Julia Child (today would be her 99th birthday), who championed the idea of drinking dinner with wine, calling it “natural and enjoyable” for decades as she spread her love of food and wine to the world.  Today is a perfect excuse to open that bottle you’ve been saving or stop by the liquor store and grab whatever wine suits your fancy, and join in on what Wilson described as a “semi-planned, semi-spontaneous, international ‘flash mob’ of food and wine lovers who will be celebrating in locales around the planet”.