Sunshine so brilliant greeted our arrival in Chablis for this week long "fete" to showcase the treasures of Burgundy it was in direct contrast to the rain and chill of two years prior, where umbrellas and coats were necessary to protect against the winter chill.
One of the hazards of being a wine educator and writer [...]

Gorgeous sunny weather is this beautiful city is always a treat. I am here today, March 15 2010, on a four day study trip with fellow students in the Master of Wine program. Happily, I’ve met most of the group during our Napa educational week and then during what is called a ‘Course Day’ in [...]

Sopexa JoLynn Howe (right)
… so I will be in Bordeaux in a few weeks to attend En Primeur … and so appreciated the snapshot of some of the 2009s showcased by Sopexa’s Le Cercle Rive Droite today for journalists and members of the trade. The 2009s were showing remarkably well! At the same time, Sopexa [...]

Chiara Ferraris
Did you know that wines from Italy are the most imported wines to the USA?

In Manhattan, Italian wines are very hot, and they are most diverse and exciting at the restaurant I Trulli, which has hundreds of Italian wines on its list.

Now certain Manhattanites (you now who you are!) are known to like “mysterious” [...]

Have you heard of Manchuela? It is a very small, rather new D.O. in Spain that makes quality white, rose, and red wine. Recently, winemakers from the region presented their wines to journalists at a lunch in New York with commentary from wine educator Michael Apstein.

Michael Apstein
Have you heard of Manchuela? It is a very small, rather new D.O. in Spain that makes quality white, rose, and red wine. Recently, winemakers from the region presented their wines to journalists at a lunch in New York with commentary from wine educator Michael Apstein.

The native grape of the region is Bobal, which [...]

Antonio (standing)
One of the best things about being a wine writer is the opportunity to meet really great people. Wine producers always seem to be so genuinely friendly and nice. Of course, they are sales peole by necessity, yet every single wine person I’ve met has always been incredibly sincere and passionate about their product.

This [...]

Wednesday’s events took place at the CIA in the famed Greystone building. Jeff Morgan, winemaker and author whom I interviewed many times, gave a fabulous brief on winemaking bore Karen MacNeil (author of The Wine Bible and now invited to the Hall of Fame from our Wine Media Guild) in New York and Eric Asimov, Wine Editor of the New York Times, gave a great presentation on tasting notes.

Elyssia Pinot Noir
Did you realize that rose-colored sparklers is the trend of the moment? Freixenet has a new pink sparkler called Elyssia made from the Pinot Noir grape. It is a gorgeous color as you can see from the picture, and goes even better with a bouquet of valentine’s day flowers.

Pinot Noir, it happens, is [...]

Vino 2010 Italian Wine Week

… so I am on my way to the opening of New York, February 3, 2010
I had spent the opening day (February 3) in the Napa Valley at a conference related to the Masters of Wine (though happily we did have an Italian wine seminar with many examples of great Italian [...]

Awaiting the Tasting
“Now this Volnay would go perfectly with salmon!” says Becky Wasserman, the vibrant American-born French wine importer and head of Becky Wasserman Selections who is giving a presentation to the eager young staff at London Lennie’s, a famous, casual, yet upscale high quality seafood restaurant in Queens that is celebrating its 50th Anniversary [...]

White Burgundy Tasting
Imagine yourself at a very elegant restaurant, hosting an important client, or trying to impress a date. You both decide on white fish as an entrée, so you are leaning toward a white wine. And since Chardonnay is such a popular grape, and Burgundy, France, such a respected region, you decide to go [...]

 
For whatever reason, I received the book About Wine by J. Patrick Henderson and Dellie Rex over two years ago, yet had been too overwhelmed by my wine studies to open anything that wasn’t Janscis Robinson or Tom Stevenson. It’s only now that I have my diploma from the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust that [...]

Apremont Appellation in the French Alps
 
As a wine educator, one of the most pleasurable aspects of my profession is choosing a theme for a class and introducing students to exciting wines or wine regions I have discovered. And here in Manhattan, this is a special challenge, because in this jaded city most everyone dabbling in [...]

Apremont Appellation in the French Alps
 
As a wine educator, one of the most pleasurable aspects of my profession is choosing a theme for a class and introducing students to exciting wines or wine regions I have discovered. And here in Manhattan, this is a special challenge, because in this jaded city most everyone dabbling in [...]

Marisa D’Vari, seated (L)
… so you can imagine how exciting it was to celebrate graduation from the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust after nearly three years of non-stop study. The event was held at Il Trulli, a fashionable NYC restaurant, and it was great to catch up with former classmates, former grads, and all the [...]

Ok, so if you review wine at the larger tasting events in Manhattan, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong, you know the gut-wrenching, high-pressured feeling of knowing to take accurate (read time consuming) tasting notes when the world’s treasures are before you. You might have already realized that napkins, leaflets, scraps of paper are not the [...]

Let’s face it, sometimes reading the back of a bottle of wine is simply not enough. We’ve all had the experience of tasting a wine so incredible we want to know everything about it at once: the name of the grapes, the style of wine, and why it tastes so much more incredible than any [...]

Let’s face it, sometimes reading the back of a bottle of wine is simply not enough. We’ve all had the experience of tasting a wine so incredible we want to know everything about it at once: the name of the grapes, the style of wine, and why it tastes so much more incredible than any [...]

Educators often remark that the best way to learn a new skill is to have fun as you do so. This seems to be the theory behind Jennifer Rosen’s Wine Teasers Wine Game, which is a pack of fifty question cards one can whip out in a moment’s notice to disarm any self-described wine snob [...]