The Spirit World

The warm days of summer are almost upon us — time to break out the white wine. Versatile as an aperitif and food-friendly, Sauvignon Blanc is as varied in style and complexity as are completely different varietals.
At a recent gathering of starving artists, the 2006 Baron D’Aliénor Bordeaux Sauvignon was a real crowd pleaser. Made […]

Each year, and with fairly little fanfare, there is a fairly exhaustive spirits judging that takes place in San Francisco. Anthony Dias Blue is the founder of the competition, which saw its eighth year in operation when it held its 2008 judging in mid March.
There were 847 products submitted, across 439 different brand classifications. Judging […]

I’ve recently discovered a wine related search engine. It is used the same way as you would use Yahoo or Google but, as it is wine specific, all you need to do is key in “Spain” rather than “Spanish wine” and you will get all relevant wine related results.
The developers say “We aim to be […]

If you’re not a captain of industry or you don’t have celebrity status, then you might want to check out my Artists Picks, great moderately priced wines under $10. I’ll be reviewing a different wine in each post, describing the terroir, region and providing tasting notes.
The Douro Valley in Portugal is a spectacular landscape of […]

Comeing up quick - May 16th and 17th May is the Savor American Craft Beer and Food Experience.
Described as a ‘must attend for craft beer aficionados and foodies alike’, SAVOR will offer a memorable craft beer and food experience to a limited number of attendees under the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC.
There will be […]

An interesting snippet from a BBC email highlighting the background to toasting ones health -
According to them ‘toast water’ was a restorative drink during the 18th and 19th centuries and a highly popular one to boot. It was made by pouring boiling water over toasted bread and left to infuse until cool. It was then strained and […]

I sent a bottle of wine back the other day as I thought it was faulty. It had a very slight musty smell to it in the glass and I wasn’t happy it was right. Now I’ve never sent wine back before in a restaurant so I was interested to see what reaction I got […]