From the category archives:

Bon Vivant

News at Ma(i)sonry & Blackbird Vineyards

by Marisa D'Vari26 February 2010
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Taylor Mason, Resident Chef
…. it seems like I’ve been going to the Napa Valley every few weeks this year. Only February, and I’ve been in late January for the Master of Wine educational seminar and just last week, the Symposium for Professional Wine Journalists and the Premiere Napa Valley Barrel Auction.

Usually Yountville looks the same [...]

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Nearly $2 Million Raised at Premiere Napa Valley Barrel-Futures Auction

by Marisa D'Vari21 February 2010
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Gary Fisch (stripped shirt) of Gary’s Wine and Marketplace (location New Jersey)
,,, so here I am, freshly returned to NYC after a week in Napa tasting fantastic wine, spending time with fellow journalists at the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood, and attending many of the festivities and tastings leading up to the Premiere [...]

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Meadowood Chef Christopher Kostow Gets 4 Stars

by Marisa D'Vari21 February 2010
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Chef Christopher Kostow

 
It has been a while – perhaps more than a year – when I had the tasting menu at the fabulous Meadowood resort in the Napa Valley (click here to read the review).
I had the pleasure of being at Meadowood this past week in anticipation of the Napa Valley Wine Auction, yet did [...]

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Symposium for Professional Wine Writers 2010

by Marisa D'Vari15 February 2010
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Every February I have been attending the symposium for professional wine writers in the Napa Valley. It’s a great way to see good friends usually only accessed  by tweets, writing on Facebook walls, and commenting on blogs.

Of course, it is also a great place to taste some of Napa’s best wines and the delicious food [...]

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Winter Tasting Menu at Jean-Georges paired with Baron de Brane Bordeaux 2005

by Marisa D'Vari21 January 2010
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Amuse Bouche at Jean-Georges
 
So many choices, so little time! As you can imagine, a wine list at Jean-Georges has many pages of fine wine on richly textured paper. Some have many zeroes, some only one or two.

The restaurant is one of the three best in the city, and well worth pairing the cuisine with a [...]

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AWineStory.com now featured on New York Wine Bloggers

by Marisa D'Vari20 January 2010
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Wine Friends
… very excited and honored to be part of New York Wine Bloggers a site offering articles by other New York based wine bloggers I know put together by Tony Karrer, Phd. I first found the site doing a search on some wine-related keywords, and was surprised to find many long time and newer [...]

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Do you love wine? Visit the New York Wine Expo

by Marisa D'Vari5 January 2010
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New York Wine Expo
Imagine how exciting it will be to discover all the new trends in wine, and sip wine from Italy, Germany, Australia, South America — even from Oregon and California. It happens in NYC February 26 – 28 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

I went last year and it was lots of [...]

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Restaurant Review: STK in Manhattan

by Marisa D'Vari16 December 2009
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“Look, horns!” A blonde gestures to the gleaming white fiberglass priapic shapes jutting above the heads of the testosterone-fueled bar crowd at the glamorous new Meatpacking steakhouse STK. “How apropos!”

With its sleek, dramatic design, STK exemplifies the new female-friendly, NYC steakhouse geared to a younger, hipper crowd.

Under the direction of executive chef Todd Mark Miller, [...]

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Chablis Soiree

by Marisa D'Vari4 December 2009
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Women at Chablis Event
… so after enjoying Grand Cru Chablis after an excellent presentation on the subject, many of Manhattan’s top journalists came to celebrate at the SoHo Grand. Earlier that day there had been an excellent presentation on Chablis wines (read about it here)
 

Sushma and Christian
Above you can see one of the wine makers, [...]

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Review: Party Brunch at Bagatelle Restaurant in NYC

by Marisa D'Vari24 November 2009
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Bagatelle Restaurant
"I hear this place is like a nightclub during Sunday Brunch," a celebrated wine writer told me as we awaited festivities relating to a celebration of Beaujolais Nouveau, taking place just that minute at the Bagatelle restaurant in Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District. "People dancing on the tables, and all that."
"A club at lunch …" [...]

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Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau Media Lunch

by Marisa D'Vari19 November 2009
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Flower Children
"I’ve never seen so much flower power in my life!" said one guest at the "Peace, Love, Beaujolais Noveau" event that took place at the ultra hip Bagatelle restaurant on 13th street.

Flamboyant and outrageous, this hippie-era themed press "happening" and lunch has been going on for 27 years between Bill Deutsch, Mr. Georges Duboeuf [...]

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Feast at Felidia: Exploring the Bastianich Wine Collection

by Marisa D'Vari5 November 2009
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Wine Media Guild Members flank Lidia
Of course you know that the private dining room at Felidia is one of the best in town. And the cuisine is supurb. Yet did you know that Lidia and her son, restauranteur Joseph Bastianich also make wine?

On November 4 2009 they treated the Wine Media Guild to their collection, [...]

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Review: Food and Wine Pairing at Meadowood

by Marisa D'Vari1 November 2009

Are you a jaded diner? In today’s power-packed culinary world, many people are lucky enough to visit four and five star restaurants as a matter of course. Twenty years ago, for example, dining at a top restaurant would be because…

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Tasting Perrier Jouet Champagne with Chef de Cave Herve Deschamps

by Marisa D'Vari23 October 2009
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Perrier Jouet

 
“On Valentines’ Day I would always buy boxed sets of Perrier-Jouet Champagne with matching glasses so my guests would have a memoir of the evening,” said a well-connected restaurateur at a recent lunch to celebrate past and present vintages of the House of Perrier-Jouet Fleur De Champagne Portfolio.
Of course, you know the House of [...]

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City Harvest Benefit 2009

by Marisa D'Vari21 October 2009
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"If the Metropolitan Building was somehow beamed up to outer space on Tuesday, October 20th," said a guest at the annual Bid Against Hunger event at the Metropolitan Pavilion, "every celebrity chef on the planet would be gone!"
If you are a fan of the TV Food Network and shows like Top Chef, the place to [...]

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Pairing Exotic Cuisine from Radisson St Martin With Wine

by Marisa D'Vari16 October 2009
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Have you noticed that hotel chefs … rather, high-end resort hotel chefs, are all the rage? Their responsibilities are even heavier than those of their restaurant-based colleagues, as they must set a tone with the cuisine that also matches that of the hotel. In many high-end hotels, the chef is also responsible for creating room [...]

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Pairing (ghostly!) Food with Wine on Halloween Night

by Marisa D'Vari13 October 2009
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Looking for the perfect wine and food pairing on Halloween night? You’ve come to the right place.

When I read about a spiritual medium organizing a wine tasting at the Astor center in New York Halloween night, October 31, 2009 I was a bit surprised. The Astor center is a very well-respected center for wine [...]

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Wine and Food Pairing at Restaurant Daniel with Sommelier Raj Vaidya and Executive Chef Jean-Francois Bruel

by Marisa D'Vari26 August 2009

Wine & Food Pairing at Restaurant Daniel with Sommelier Raj Vaidya and Executive Chef Jean-Francois Bruel Part 1 If the oldest question in the world is “what’s for dinner,” consider that the second oldest question may very well be “what…

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Pairing Food and Wine at Meadowood in the Napa Valley

by Marisa D'Vari20 August 2009
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Are you a jaded diner? In today’s power-packed culinary world, many people are lucky enough to visit four and five star restaurants as a matter of course. Twenty years ago, for example, dining at a top restaurant would be because…

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Enjoying Chateau Lafite-Rothschild

by Marisa D'Vari22 June 2009
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For a moment, imagine yourself an invited guest at an exclusive dinner at a First Growth Chateau in the Medoc. It is mid-June, and everyone who is “anyone” in the wine world is in Bordeaux to attend VinExpo to make…

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