Time to bookmark your page in the Twilight saga. We’re back for the second installment of my wine basics tutorial that will keep your vinous vocabulary savvy

Master Sommelier Tim Gaiser has a new $89 DVD that promises to teach you everything he knows about wine—or at least as much of it as he can disseminate in 20 minutes. At $4.50 a minute, that’s a pretty penny.   Since I have yet to get my big break (“Swirling with the Stars”?), I’m […]

There’s nothing like a polarizing topic to get wine geeks worked into a lather, and few topics are as polarizing as decanting.

Six judges convened on Monday, June 14, at Barboursville Vineyards for this year’s Monticello Wine Cup competition. Their task was to blindly taste 60 wines from the Monticello AVA (the American Viticultural Area surrounding Charlottesville) in 3.5 hours. But with Italy playing Paraguay in the World Cup smack in the middle of the competition, Barboursville’s […]

In our minds, they’re as inevitable a duo as Adam and Eve. But are wine and cheese always meant to be? 

For once, France can’t take any credit for the success of one of its own grapes. Once upon a time, Malbec was from France and not given much at- tention, but the neglected grape found a happy home in Argentina where it gets to bask in both sunshine and limelight. The arrangement seems ideal: Country […]

As I write, wine lovers in our country are united on a single front that has nothing to do with what’s in their glasses, but rather, what might not be, if some beer and wine wholesalers get their way. A bill known as H.R. 5034 snuck onto the floor of Congress last month with bi-partisan […]

 Ah, spring. Birds are chirping, people are smiling, the world is alive again. And, after more than 60 inches of snow this winter, we seem to be taking the allergies, stink bugs, and re-mulching in stride. No sooner do the first daffodils peek through the barren earth than do I raise a glass to the […]

Great memory: While living in Italy, I watched a housewife run a weekly errand.

I’m on a quest for good, reasonably priced Burgundy.