A Taste of Wine

The results are in on the 2013 Italian harvest and for those that enjoy a good Barolo, Chianti Classico, Primativo or Nero D’ Avola and hundreds of other Italian varietals, the news is good. You will of course have to …

In the wine tasting world, if you have a wine that starts with the letter A, you have a distinct advantage. Tasters have a “clean” palate and are starting fresh. J Vineyards starts and ends with one letter, J, and …

I do my diligence with attention and care when it comes to considering a restaurant and its dinner and wine list.  Does it live up to its story by delivering the goods, like listing all the ingredients for each menu item …

Between the Central California coastal city of Lompoc and the town of Buellton, just west of the 101, lies 30,700 square acres of the Sta. Rita Hills.  This pristine, peaceful land is located in Santa Barbara County and is part of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. ( American Viticulture Area) …

“Discover Beaujolais” read the campaign slogan.  It caught my eye because Beaujolias is one of the oldest wine brands in the world, crafted by respected wine makers in eastern France above Lyon for something like 2000 years.  It’s squeezed into an area dominated by Burgundy in the north, and the Rhone wines …

A leading wine publication, Wine Enthusiast, has revealed its Top 10 Wine Travel Destinations for this year, and many are real eye-openers.  It based the choices on international wine countries, extraordinary food and cultural points. Italian locations could have taken up …

A friend of mine recently passed me the official site map for  Temecula that I speculate could have been printed in the 80’s.  It showed 12 wineries, some 25 less than are counted today in the winegrowers brochure, an amazing growth record. …

The road map to find my great 8 wines for the first three months of the year took me to many road shows, wine bars, resorts and restaurants. Wineries are teaming together to tell their story along with a taste …

It is a well known occasion among knowledgable wine consumers that the beginning of the California wine revolution began with an extraordinary blind wine tasting of French and California wines in Paris in 1976, known as the Paris Tasting. In …

I pay attention to an e mail from Jim Barrasso, the energetic  owner of Firefly Grill and Wine Bar in Encinitas. Barrasso has a keen sense of wine bargains and occasionally will share this good fortune with his  customers. One day recently he flashed …