For those who know me best, I always have wine on the brain.  Call me “wino.”  And, thanks to local wine aficionados like Christian Depken, owner of Le Chai Wine Shop in the Starland District, I am edging ever closer to understanding wine, as opposed to just drinking it.

So when a read a recent article in the Marietta Daily Journal that described a growing wine industry in Georgia, I took notice.  While Depken and other self-named wine snobs put their weight behind old world wines (read: European), I’m sure they’d all agree that the diversification of Georgia’s economy to include an expanding interest in viticulture is pretty damn cool.  Not just peaches, pecans and pines anymore.  No sir.

According to the Journal, Southern vintners are beginning to develop a foothold in the U.S. wine industry.  And grapevines are spreading like wildfire across terrain south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

“…in the American South, the taste ranges from sweet, wet whites from the local scuppernong grapes (a muscadine variant) to Euro-style like chardonnays and merlots.

Today there are 433 wineries across the region, a nearly 50 percent increase from just three years ago, according to the National Association of American Wineries. That’s almost four times as many wineries as 15 years ago.”

Savannah gets around.  At this very moment in fact, our fair city is being pimped around the globe, courtesy of Sky Magazine (yea, a reach of 11 million).  We’re a favorite feature location for the in-flight magazine and travel companion of Delta (and now Northwest) Airlines.  In recent years, they’ve covered our history, fare, travel accommodations and business community at least five times.  And in the current issue, Sky shares with savvy globetrotters and jetsetters tale of our cozy, creative business-friendly environment.  That’s right, Savannah’s Creative Coast as light reading during taxi and take off.

An Industry of Ideas presents a handful of local businesses of varying specialties, at various stages of development, that all have two things in common: they love doing business in Savannah and a large portion of their product is ideas.  Some of our well-known compadres make the list, including Hannah Byrne at Smack Dab Studios (a graphic design and website development firm that started in Atlanta in 2004 and relocated operations to Savannah, much to our delight), Chad Warner and the gang at BlueLime (a high-tech architectural rendering and architectural animation company that emerged from SCAD connections), and Howard Paul and Bob Benedetto of Benedetto Guitars (the world’s premier and award-winning jazz guitar maker that overlooked Atlanta and Nashville to move it’s hub to Savannah).  The featurette focuses on what brought our creative friends to the Creative Coast and what keeps them here.

I’m telling you, Savannah is full of surprises.  Just when I think I’ve seen everything this not-so-big city has to offer, something unexpected arises.  Which is precisely what happened yesterday when, as I busily typed away at my eco-geek dayjob, an email came across my screen from the Savannah Chamber and CVB with talk of a fully restored, green-powered 1930′s era streetcar in operation.  Do my eyes deceive me or are we getting freakishly progressive around here?

Yes, it’s true.  Savannah is unveiling North America’s first hybrid streetcar in celebration of Local Climate Action Week, which begins on December 8th and runs through the 12th.  Climate Action Week is sponsored nationwide by ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) and Climate Communities, a national coalition of cities and counties that is educating federal policymakers about the essential role of local governments in addressing climate change and promoting a strong local-federal partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Climate Communities coalition and ICLEI are working with local governments across America to release a blueprint to the next President and 111th Congress that calls for greater federal support for local government action on climate change.  To ensure that incoming federal decision-makers understand the importance of this blueprint, local government leaders across the nation will hold local media events to showcase local government successes and call for action during national Local Climate Action Week.

Apologies, I feel like I am behind in reporting the seemingly biggest news of the New Year. Yes, our local blog friends and news providers were on top of this subject in way I wasn’t, which is surprising considering the topic is decidedly GREEN. What SustainableSavannah.com and Savannah Morning News (among others) have been trying to remind us is that we’re mere weeks away from our very own curbside recycling program. Gasp, sputter, cheer, grin.

Savannah has caught up with the rest of the world and is ringing in the New Year with a bang. The brand spanking new recycling program is the product of many years of negotiations among residents, City government officials and contracted service providers. To be sure, it has turned many a hair gray and the stress is not over, as the government now has to enact the program and make it work. But I for one feel like this is a huge step in the right direction. (I’m sure you were expecting me to say that, though.)