The Spirit World

For a merchant marketed as a French specialist, the range in my local Nicolas was very disappointing. It’s an ex-Oddbins branch converted earlier this year. Comparing the range stocked between the two (they both have the same parent company) couldn’t been more marked. Oddbins has hundreds of wines; now the shelves seem very sparse. Just a few […]

While Northern and Central Italian wine regions are quite well known internationally, think Tuscany and Piedmont, Southern Italy’s wine regions are becoming more popular as these wines find their way onto the world market. Among them, the region of Puglia, which serves as the “heel” of Italy’s boot, has had a renaissance in its wine production. Historically, Pliny […]

Feast on this! Finally a Chianti I like that fits my artist picks (wines under $10) - Saggio Chianti. Times have changed. The former DOC classification was all about quantity but now it’s all about quality with the Chianti Classico DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) - the Italian wine classification for wines with […]

Snooth, the cellar management/wine tasting note resource, has just introduced Group Pages where you can find in-depth information about your favorite wines. Explore the Grapes, Regions and Wineries as well as the Stores they are available in. Individual Group Pages offer detailed information you can rely on to help guide your purchasing decisions. As their tag line explains […]

I recently attended the first annual North American Wine Bloggers’ Conference, held at the Flamingo Hotel in Sonoma, CA. Primarily developed by the OpenWine Consortium and Zephyr Wine Adventures, the conference featured a wide variety of activities, many of which differered from your usual conference fare. As a first forray into this arena, the conference […]

I love beer that’s so thick you can chew it. I adore heavy stouts and I.P.A.s make my bottom all tingly, but there’s a special place in my being that’s purely reserved for barleywine. Just the fact that the IBUs can get well over 100 in this wonderful style of beer is enough to intrigue…well, […]

On the last day of Tales of the Cocktail, we somehow found ourselves meandering around the lobby in the morning. We happened upon a tasting room for Noilly Prat vermouths, and decided to step inside. To be honest, it was the enticing buffet of fruit and pastries that got us in the room. Once we […]

My latest artist pick (groovy wines under $10) comes from one of the oldest estates in the Jumilla region of southern Spain- - Finca Luzon — founded by the Gil family in 1916.
LUZON VERDE 2006 at the great price of $ 8.99 is certified organic and made from 100% Monastrell (a varietal also known as […]

A blast on the nose right away deep from the La Famiglia vineyards. You know from the first smell that you are in for a treat. Unfortunately for you readers out there the La Famiglia Colmera is no longer available unless you are lucky enough to find it in a local wine shop or by […]

So what we have here is a quality Zinfandel from Lodi, CA (that unfortunately most people won’t give the time of day since the label says Woodbridge). Great mellow zinfandel with only 13.5% alcohol, which is not the normal killer from Amador or El Dorado counties in California. With the lower alcohol content it really […]