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When I find compatible wine and food combinations, I have to force myself to try different pairing options and think outside the box… er…bottle. I suppose it’s because I’m a firm believer in the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” so I am very reluctant to risk suffering through, heaven forbid, a…

Homo sapiens are complex beings. We like to think that we know what we like, and then we change our minds and make choices that surprise us. Take wine for example. For years, I had an aversion to drinking  any type of sweet wine. But I  know that was  the result of too many traumatic youthful experiences with…

Discovering the symbiotic relationship between wine and food is one of life’s exquisite pleasures. While I’ve always enjoyed eating, I was not always a fan of wine. As a matter of fact, it took me several years to realize that wine could be more than just an inferior substitute for beer or hundred proof vodka.…

I’m issuing a critically important alert to folks who share my gender: Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and you better be ready! Men, believe me when I say that special person in your life takes this annual holiday VERY seriously. I learned this the hard way several years ago when I arrived home from work…

I recently visited California and the vineyard that annually provides the grapes I use to make homemade wine. For the last five years, the quality of those wines has far exceeded anything I’ve ever made before, and I wanted to meet the people that grow the grapes. The Lanza family vineyards are in Solano County…

Every autumn, just before Thanksgiving, Wine Spectator Magazine releases its “Top 100” wines of the year. This year the bottle chosen as the best wine of 2023 comes from Italy. It’s the 2018 Argiano Brunello Di Montalcino that retails for $90 a bottle. The Argiano was one of 9200 wines blind-tasted and rated by the…

When I first started writing about wine for the Charleston newspapers a few decades ago, my goal was to educate folks that wine should be an everyday accompaniment to meals. Unfortunately, back then, the prevailing view of most beer-swilling and cocktail-imbibing Americans was that wine was an elitist product only consumed by ascot wearing, Hugh…

There’ a nip in the air, multi-colored leaves are falling from the trees and football season is in full swing! It’s officially autumn, and I’m ready for a hearty dinner with full-bodied wine to celebrate my favorite time of the year. And also, with Columbus Day here, I’m going to recommend two Italian wines to…

During winters when I was growing up in the Northview section of Clarksburg, I remember being forced to eat food I thought had been grown in tin cans. When I refused to eat the limp and tasteless vegetables and fruit that oozed from these metal containers, I was required to sit at the dinner table…

When I was a teenager and knew everything there was to know about life, my father, in an attempt to enlighten me said, “Son, life is like an onion, there’s a lot of layers to it, and sometimes it will bring a tear to your eye, but you’ll be a wise man if you just…