In the pie guide that accompanied our Nov. 23 feature story, “Where Do Pies Come From?,” we neglected to include Café Ciabatta, in Dover, in our list of locales that offer from-scratch pies.

I found myself in a pickle. I selected a wine for this column from the liquor store shelf that I’d heard good things about but never tasted. Once home I deliberately cleared my mind of slanted, friend-related “facts” about this label, pulled the cork, swirled, sniffed and sipped. Uh-oh. It sucked. Bad. This was not what I had in mind several hours after my deadline.

Marshall Malone and Jonathan Blakeslee, owners of Portsmouth Tea Company and White Heron Tea, respectively, would be disappointed because right now, I am drinking Celestial Seasonings “Mountain Chai” and the water I used was boiling. I suppose that’s OK if you just want to do a quick, morning tea, and you don’t care how it tastes, but if you really want to sit down and “have a cup of tea,” there are some things you should know.

Pinot Noir is a hot category of wine, so much so that wineries’ supplies are diminishing, according to a conversation I had with a New England territory sales and marketing manager for a major California winery this week. “We have to slow the demand in the retail sector in order to protect the supply of product for hotel and restaurant wine lists where our Pinot Noirs appear … the only way we can do that once the vintage is released is to raise the price as a speed bump,” he told me.