Care for a Cava? When you reach for a Spanish Sparkler on your supermarket shelf, chances are it’s from Freixenet, given their 200 million bottle production. Did you realize that the family-owned Freixenet sells 160 sparkling and still wine brands worldwide? Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Spain to meet CEO Pedro [...]

  Quick! Thick of Rioja (the famous Spanish wine) and what flavors come to mind? One of my favorite sommelier instructors thought that during a blind tasting, a Rioja can often be recognized by a dusty, leather saddle sort of scent, or by its American oak trademarks of dill and coconut. Actually, Rioja is a [...]

…   Today Vibrant Rioja produced an excellent panel and tasting at the Puck Center. The Panel, titled Rioja: Value at all Price featured Leslie Sbrocco as Moderator with ftitve spectacular women including Maria Martinez-Sierra, winemaker at Bodegas Montecillo since 1976, Virginia Almagro, export manager for Bodegas Campo Viejo and Ysios, Trinidad Villegas, Export Manager [...]

  …so this evening enjoyed a rather lively evening ar the Cervantes Institute in NYC, exploring the wines of Bodegas Riojanas. Of course it is not every day that one has the opportunity to blind taste a 1962 Vina Albina vs. a 1964 Monte Real … or in that case a 1942 Vina Albina vs. a [...]