Author: admin

I was asked the other evening to expound on the qualities of a particular grape grown in a number of different geographic wine regions around the world. How did it differ in taste and quality from one appellation to another? Good question, right? Things seemed to be going well as I began to describe the…

Check out my Vines&Vittles video on Port by clicking below.

There are not many good things one can say about winter except it is the season of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But otherwise winter is gray, cold and depressing, and I wish it could be shortened. But until we figure a way to adjust the rotational tilt of the earth or flee to terra…

Check out my video wine picks for your holiday celebrating. Please click on the link below.  And Happy Holidays !

It’s that special time of year when we all willingly succumb to something loosely defined as “The Holiday Spirit.” And while it is generally a good thing, the holiday spirit induces in me a kind of euphoria that causes me to recklessly disregard my own financial limitations. Yeah, you guessed it. In other words, I…

From time to time, I’ll be posting video featuring Vines & Vittles topics. Check out the link below for information on Beaujolais Nouveau and for some wine suggestions for Thanksgiving. Hope you like it!

When most of us think of November in the context of food and drink, Thanksgiving comes immediately to mind. But there is another date – also a Thursday and always one week before Thanksgiving -that should have particular significance for wine lovers. On November 17, the 2016 Beaujolais Nouveau will be released in France and available…

Hey, friends of wine, I’m back! After that last column where I focused too much attention on that other beverage, I was whisked away in the middle of the night and brought to a wine reeducation center for an intervention by a group of masked wino’s called “Warriors For The Vine. As a result, I…

I was sorry to hear that my good friend and fellow Gazette-Mail colleague, Rich Ireland, will no longer be educating us on the pleasures of sipping that hop-infused beverage he has so lovingly championed over the past decade. Rich’s “Beers to You” column and blog has been on my required reading list since its inception,…

I like to think that, like a fine wine, my own personal vinous tastes have matured, morphing from “in your face” big, tannic purple monsters to balanced, flavorful and nuanced wines of all colors. This transition did not occur overnight and, in fact, it took about two decades for my mind to accept what my…