Fun, High Quality, Accessible Approaches to Wine

I’m always asked about wine trends and what I think about them. There is so much going on in the wine world, that it’s often hard to whittle it down on the fly- something a little better done in writing. We’ll get the bad news out of the way- we are drinking less wine and the young people have yet to catch on to wine as a preferred beverage. The good news

Many are intimidated to throw their own wine party, but it doesn’t need to be a stress-fest. It’s easy to make it a wine-fest. I’ll give you a few options so you can design just what you need. I start with the traditional sit-down wine tasting and then offer some alternatives.

Although the country of Georgia is considered the birthplace of wine, wine as we know it has French origins. The grape varietals that we are most familiar with were cultivated and perfected in France. Once you understand that wine varietals are basically regional specialties

With over 350 varietals, Italy is one of the hardest wine countries to understand. In this column (a reprise from 2018) I won't be able to give you everything you need to know, but if you print it out and take shopping or dining, you’ll be a much more confident Italian wine consumer.

California has so many wine countries to explore that it is easy for veterans to forget about Napa Valley. There are many reasons for that, some of them quite sound. It’s expensive; it can be crowded; it can be snobby; the list goes on. But, there are a lot of great things about Napa Valley and I was happy to have spent several days there in November. This column updates the one from 2 years ago,

As it turns out, I’ve never written a primer to sparkling wines. How did that happen? I thought I could just recycle an old column and spend this time doing my day job, but I get to take you back to the basics. I’m sure many of you have some bubbles on your shopping list for their big night. Maybe this column will help you make your choices. Here we go- Sparklers 101.

I’m starting with SoCal because so many of my readers are here, but also, I suspect many other readers may be headed this way. I like covering urbanesque wine tasting because it often means that you can enjoy the delight of tasting without having to commit a whole trip to it. We are lucky in that we have many options. Let me unpack some of those for you. You will likely need reservations and I expect hours will change on a regular basis, so check out the websites as you plan.

Spain is hot right now! Get on the band wagon before we spin it out of control. It wasn't long ago that to get good Spanish food you had to go to London, Washington D.C., New York or Spain itself. José Andrés has changed that for us, through his advocacy we have more and better Spanish food available in most major cities. Wine has had a similar journey. Concha y Toro and Frexinet were widely available, but now you can get great wine from every corner of Spain from small and large producers. This allows us to sample wine from regions as diverse as stony wet Galicia to the arid, forgotten Priorat near Barcelona, and all that great Rioja in between.

In past posts, I’ve established that the wine world is pretty White, well it should come as no surprise that it is pretty male too. The Me Too movement has come to the wine world with the disclosures of the many ways women in the sommelier and restaurant service sector have been subject to sexual harassment and sexual assault as they climb the certification or the highly competitive restaurant ladders.

Dessert wines have undeservedly earned a bad name among winos. Perhaps this is due to the syrupy, sugary nature of so many or maybe it is because of how we are drinking them. Where ever your opinion lay on the love-like-hate spectrum, I hope I can convince you to try them or further your exploration into this interesting category of wine. Here is your 101…