I am struck by a story my colleagues are preparing for Nightly News this weekend that's also in today's New York Times concerning the city of Bangor, Maine. The city council there has made news by banning smoking in cars when children are present, effective immediately. Bangor is the first city to do this, but Arkansas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico have taken similar action, and several other states are considering it.

You don' t have to be a parent (I am one) to realize how much sense this makes in terms of protecting our children from the dangers of second-hand smoke. There are, of course, those who are protesting the Bangor ordinance as an invasion of privacy rights and who say the science doesn't support imposing such bans. It's part of a new front in the battle to restrict smoking, not just in public places, but increasingly, in the private realm.

Second-hand smoke concerns me greatly, and it is hard to avoid it. I regularly bob and weave my way through the streets of New York to avoid walking into someone' s smoke trail and often hold my breath when entering and leaving our office building here at 30 Rock so I don't have to breathe in from the cloud left by smokers on their breaks outside the revolving doors.

But it's the kids I worry most about, and it will be interesting so see whether other cities and states will now follow Bangor's lead and at least try to offer some level of protection for our most precious cargo, both on the road and off.

It was hard to go far in New York today without seeing, or feeling, reminders of 9/11. A short lunchtime walk in Midtown confirmed that. Outside our office building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a crowd stood as members of the New York Police Department band played a medley of patriotic songs, their enthusiasm invoking the perseverance of a city and its people.

During a pause, the sound of bagpipes drifted over from outside St. Patrick's Cathedral half a block away, where a 9/11 service had just ended. The day was clear and bright, just like on that day five years ago.

I was reminded of something else that happened in this city on 9/11 and especially the days that followed. New York became an especially kind and civil place, as friends and colleagues and even strangers looked after one another. The city might have been showing

New York City firefighters from the 3rd Battalion attend
a Mass Monday at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
(AP Photo/Shiho Fukada)

a little of that again today as the pace of things seemed a bit slower, a bit more gentle. Over at Park Avenue and 51st Street, a fire truck from Engine Company 65 was parked on the corner, the firefighters inside pausing for a few minutes and looking out at the pedestrian traffic. As I passed by, one of them nodded. I nodded back, feeling proud.

Renowned Lebanese winery copes with conflict
As efforts to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah have moved ever-so-slowly through the diplomatic process, the war has escalated, as our NBC colleagues have been reporting from Lebanon and Israel on Nightly News. Ordinary Lebanese and Israelis have been caught in the conflict, and not just those near the front lines. Business and commerce and culture have also suffered, but we have reported relatively little on this.

Beirut, for example, had made great strides in recent years toward becoming a cosmopolitan center and a travel destination city as it recovered from decades of civil war.  The latest conflict has been a great setback in that regard. And yet there is resiliency, determination and even optimism to be found.

I found it in a man named Serge Hochar and in a wine he produces. Hochar is the proprietor of Chateau Musar, a winery in Lebanon known throughout the world. Because I have a keen interest in wine as well as news (in addition to my Nightly News responsibilities I write about wine for MSNBC.com and NBC News), I wondered about Chateau Musar in recent weeks. So I called Serge Hochar the other day, and then wrote about the man and his wine in my weekly column.

"The vineyards are usually not the target," Hochar observes, stating both fact and hope. "However, the pickers could be frightened if they are shelling." Hochar is thinking about the coming harvest — and the current war. This is winemaking in Lebanon.

But not just any wine. Imagine a red that is wonderfully complex, unfolds minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour to reveal yet another component, another layer. Such an experience is rare by everyday wine standards. In fact, the wine I am describing might well be the most fascinating wine I've tasted this year, a wine with pedigree that has developed wonderfully and is, in a word, glorious.

It could be a Burgundy, a prestigious Bordeaux, or perhaps a Barolo from Italy's Piedmont. All would be good guesses. But this is a wine — the wine — from Lebanon. It is a Château Musar.

Almost from the start of this bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, I have been thinking of Château Musar -- in the opinion of many critics, one of the world's greatest. My thinking was brought into sharper focus the other day when, in my neighborhood wine store in New York, I happened to come across the 1997 red Château Musar. Here I was, connected to a war half a world away by a bottle of red wine I found just a couple of blocks from the comfort of home, a wine that most people would not recognize but would, I am now certain, appreciate and covet if given the chance to experience it.

I myself was eager to try it, and I'll get to my impressions in a moment. More importantly, I wondered how Château Musar, which was started by Hochar's father Gaston in 1930 in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and had already survived decades of civil war, was holding up during this latest conflict.

The answer came in a telephone conversation with Serge Hochar, who has run Château Musar since 1959, after studying winemaking in Bordeaux. He was in his car, driving home from his office in Beirut to a suburb in the Christian part of Lebanon (an experience that gives new urgency to the dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone).

"Our office was 500 meters from where the shelling yesterday was going on," he tells me. What was that like? I ask. "It does shake me up physically," he says, "but not morally. Never."

"Because I've been living in Lebanon for so many years, I have become used to such situations," he says matter-of-factly about the war.  His concerns are entirely practical.  The harvest — first the white grapes followed by the reds — usually begins in late August and goes through September.

Beyond the worry that his pickers might be scared away by the violence, there's the issue of getting the grapes from the Bekaa to the winery in Ghazir, which is north of Beirut and 60 to 70 miles away. "We have to bring the grapes to the winery, which could be difficult because of the roads," Hochar says, referring to damage from the bombing. "Transportation could be a problem for us. It depends on how long this situation lasts. If it's settled in the next month it won't be a problem."

Opening a bottle of the '97 Château Musar shows why we should share his hope. The wine, which is $45 and more than fairly priced, is striking from the first breath. Ruby in color, there are aromas of cedar and earth and a bit of tobacco.  I take a sip then pour some more. There's some meat now and more earth. I swirl it, smell and sip it again. Now the fruit is emerging —blackberry and plum, eventually some raspberry. There are also touches of mocha, vanilla, butterscotch. The finish is spicy. It goes on like this over the course of a couple of hours or so. But the wine is more than a collection of tastes, descriptions of which cannot do it justice in its entirety. It is an experience.

Food seems almost incidental and should be kept simple. On this night it was grilled lamb, ratatouille, and freshly picked corn. The wine, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, carignan and cinsault grapes grown at 3,000 feet, is softly tannic and brightly acidic, with everything in balance.  It is concentrated but not overpowering. It is elegant. At nine years old it seems in its prime.

But Hochar corrects me. "The '97," he says, "is still a very young baby. The '97 you are enjoying now will be totally different in four years. It will be a different animal."  Of that he seems certain. Of this war and of Lebanon, however, he won't predict.  He says he's too old for that and doesn't do it anymore. He has, he says, learned to live with it all.  Serge Hochar has never let war come between him and his wine.

Château Musar is imported by Broadbent Selections at www.broadbent.com.

Edward Deitch's wine column appears Wednesdays on The Today Show Web site. He welcomes comments from readers.

Write to him at EdwardDeitch@hotmail.com.

An interesting story came up in our planning meeting this afternoon that you won't see on the broadcast because of time constraints, so we thought it was worth mentioning in this space. It's about the issue of global warming, and another disturbing prediction, especially to those of us who are concerned about grape expectations. (In addition to my role as a senior producer of the broadcast, I am also a wine critic for MSNBC.com and NBC Mobile on cell phones.)

A report just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that by the end of the century, climate warming could wipe out at least half the areas suitable for growing premium wine grapes in the United States. The contention is that there will simply be too many very hot days for grapes to grow properly, especially in the Southwest and central parts of the country. The areas at risk also include California's Napa and Sonoma Valleys, which form the backbone of this country's multi-billion dollar wine industry.

By contrast, the paper suggests that conditions for grape growing might actually improve in parts of the Northwest and Northeast, where, if you ask some wine lovers, they're not too bad right now (Oregon, Washington and New York all produce excellent wines).

So consider this just the latest food - or wine - for thought on global warming as you pour yourself a glass of California cabernet or chardonnay with dinner after watching tonight's broadcast. Cheers.

With correspondent Tom Costello's Friday story on marketing to the heavyset still in mind [LINK], I got a good taste over the weekend of one of the root causes of obesity in our society. The occasion was my younger son's seventh birthday. Because it rained all day Saturday here in the New York area, we postponed his party, which was to have included lots of outdoor activities.

Instead, we did something we rarely do on weekends: we went out to lunch. As we walked into the restaurant, a popular barbecue place, we passed a man, to put it delicately, whose mid-section required him to be several feet from the table from which he was practically inhaling his lunch. I wondered how he got this way. I noticed several very young children at the table and worried for a moment that health problems related to his obesity could cut the man's life short.

We sat down and read the menu. My wife and the birthday boy decided to split the southern fried chicken. Our other son, who is 10, went for the "fried chicken fingers" from the kids' menu. I ordered a beer and a pulled chicken BBQ sandwich.

As we waited, I noticed other diners coming in. The majority, young and old, men and women, were significantly overweight. They walked slowly to their tables. They looked at the menu. They ordered.

Our food came. My sandwich was a medium pile of barbecue chicken on an open bun, with French fries and cole slaw on the side. It looked manageable, even though a little less would have been no insult. The southern fried chicken -– half a large chicken cut into pieces -- was more than enough for two people of any size, and we ended up taking one of the bigger pieces home. But the real revelation was the chicken "fingers" from the "piglets' menu." This $5 meal came with five, two-inch by three-inch pieces of fried chicken breast and French fries.

Our 10-year-old, who has a healthy appetite, was able to eat just one of the entirely misnamed fingers. "I felt so full after that," he recalled later. "Now I know how fat people get fat. You're so full but the food is so addictively good that you can't stop eating it." And that, I thought, must be the essence of the problem. Keep them eating. Keep them wanting it. Keep them coming back for more with huge portions that will make them think they're getting their money's worth. Servings half the size would have been adequate for each of these dishes. Instead, here was the super-sizing of America unfolding before my eyes.

As I finish writing this, it's a little after seven on Saturday evening. I haven't had a thing to eat since lunch and I'm still not hungry. But it doesn't matter. It's time to cook dinner and I will sit down to eat anyway. Eating is habit, and habit is a hard thing to break. From what I see, marketing to the heavyset will, indeed, be a real growth business.