Recent Blog Posts
ROSY PICTURE – IT’S TIME TO THINK ABOUT EXPANDING PINK WINE OPTIONS
THE SOMM JOURNAL AUG-SEPT 2014 At a private beach club in Ramatuelle, under the shade of pine, feet nestled into soft Provencal sand, I learned about wine in the best possible way. I observed a pack of playboys moving in on a bevy of beautiful women who were busy nibbling on seafood and sipping rosé. […]
TAP IT – PRODUCERS AND BUYERS AGREE: KEG WINE IS HERE TO STAY
THE SOMM JOURNAL JUNE-JULY 2014 During my almost 11-year tenure as Adjunct Instructor at the CIA’s Rudd Center for Professional Development in Napa Valley, I witnessed the birth of wine on tap. Wine Director Traci Dutton was an early adapter, offering a local Sauvignon Blanc on tap at $5 a glass. She was thrilled to pass along cost […]
Wine and Dine Your Valentine
After New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day is the second worse night to dine out. Expectations are high, menus are fixed, everyone is rushed and stressed, and overall quality of food and experience is diminished. To make matters worse, this year it falls on a Saturday, already one of the busiest nights for many establishments. As […]
Why Somms Love Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir, “peeno nwaahhr”, is a favorite of sommeliers and winemakers alike. Why? First of all, this noble red variety from France’s Burgundy region makes an intensely flavored, complex, high acid wine with incredible longevity. As the climate gets warmer, the fruit becomes riper and more obvious, and the acid softens a bit. The net […]
Origins of the Sommelier
The word “sommelier”, or wine waiter, may have stemmed from the old French words “sommerier”, “somier”, and “bête de somme”. In this old French language, a “bête de somme” was a “beast of burden” and the “sommelier” was its herdsman. Later, the word became more specialized and referred to the official responsible for the transport […]
Planet Grape’s Top Ten Champagnes of 2014
Glass of Bubbly, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Magazine Issue 4, December 2014/January 2015 Planet Grape sends me out to host private and corporate wine events, which often include a Champagne sabering performance (see picture with black French silk hand-feathered gown styled by Material Goods as I saber Krug Champagne for Sinegal Estate Winery’s Harvest Party […]
Sabering at Sea
Glass of Bubbly, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Magazine Issue 3, October/November 2014 As Guest Wine Lecturer on HollandAmerica’s MS Maasdam recently, a week-long cruise sailing from Montrealto Boston, I had the pleasure of presenting a flight of wine to guests in the Rotterdam Dining Room with Cellar Master Sasa Grujicic. The theme was “Francevs America,” […]
The Best Champagnes on the Market
Glass of Bubbly, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Magazine Issue 2, August/September 2014 Look for non-vintage (nv) releases including the precise, muscular, yet graceful nv Philipponnat Grand Blanc de Blancs $60, yeasty and deeply toasty with notes of almond butter and lemon crème brulee, the nv Delamotte Brut $50, aka Baby Salon, elegant, ethereal almost, as it is primarily Grand […]
Krug Champagne Brunch with Olivier Krug
Glass of Bubbly, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Magazine Issue 1, June/July 2014 Recently a handful of sommeliers and wine writers joined Olivier Krug, 6th Generation and Maison Director of Krug Champagne, for a five-course pairing menu at San Francisco’s St. Regis Hotel. As we sipped a gingery, floral and creamy Krug Grande Cuvee, paired exquisitely […]
Bat Shlomo Vineyards Israel
Baron Edmond de Rothschild established the village known as Bat Shlomo, or “Salomon’s Daughter” in honor of his mother Betty Salomon von Rothschild, just above Israel’s Dalia Valley on the southern slopes of Mount Carmel. It was settled by Jewish pioneers in 1889. The Baron brought in France’s top wine experts to school them in […]
Enjoying Sparkling Wines and Champagnes
With effervescence and finesse, delicacy and richness, Champagnes and sparkling wines are easy to love. One of the reasons is that they are rarely more than 11.5-12% alcohol. Still whites and reds hover around 14%, and where there is oak-aging involved, headaches often follow. Also, acid levels in sparkling wines are quite high, helping to […]
PLANET GRAPE’S GUIDE – WHICH WINE GLASS?
If you think the perfect stemware is a must-have for your wine of choice, think again. Every day wines taste great in the park, or at the beach, places where ideal glassware is not usually at hand. Genuine wine lovers care less than you might imagine about glassware. The wine itself is key. Everything else […]
Sommelier Panel at ZAP
On February 2, 2013, hundreds of press, trade, and then consumers filled San Francisco’s Concourse Pavilion for the 22nd Annual Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP) Festival. ZAP has other events, including one in Calgary in June, but this 4-day event in San Francisco is always their main event. ZAP’s mission is to unite winegrowers, winemakers and wine enthusiasts in […]
Wine for Wheelchairs on Moon Mountain
I had the pleasure recently of joining the sommeliers of Redd, La Folie, and Boulevard, writers including Deborah Parker Wong of The Tasting Panel and Randy Caparoso of Sommelier Journal, and founders of a wine start-up, Block 122, at Lookout Ridge Winery, nestled atop the Mayacamas Mountains, for a sunset wine tasting. After twisting and […]
Secrets of Wine & Cheese Matching
Part of the bounty of Northern California is its plethora of artisanal cheeses, which are featured proudly alongside the traditional European choices in shops and farmer’s markets. You might see the parallel with our local wines. Are the local cheeses better? We have the happy cows after all, and maybe the happy goats. As with […]
Pesticides in French Wine
Photo Courtesy David Glancy MS, SF Wine School I can hear a soulful Edith Piaf lamenting, “Mon Dieu”. With the French Paradox we learned that drinking wine in moderation, with even a rich meal, may be beneficial to our health and lower chances of coronary heart disease. With Mireille Giuliano’s book, French Women Don’t Get […]
Manton Valley Approved as Tehama County’s 1st AVA
Leland Stanford planted vineyards at Vina in Tehama County in the mid 1800’s, but it wasn’t until August 1, 2014 that the area was recognized as an official American viticultural area. The new AVA, Manton Valley, east of Redding and Mt. Lassen and overlapping Tehama and Shasta counties in northern California’s eastern foothills, is 11,178 […]
The History & Future of Wine in Livermore Valley
The Livermore Valley AVA located in the East San Francisco Bay Area. Map courtesy of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association. Livermore Valley was once one of California’s prime sources of grapes. In 1882, Charles Wetmore planted cuttings of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon from Chateau d’Yquem in his Cresta Blanca Vineyard. The 1884 Cresta Blanca made […]
ZinFest Lodi Wine Festival 2014
ZinFest 2014 Celebrating ten years, this weekend’s Zinfest kicked off with a casual outdoor dinner on the breezy shores of Lodi Lake. Wine lovers from as far as Vancouver and as near as Palo Alto and Sacramento and presenters including Fred Swan, Ellen Landis, and of course local Ambassador Randy Caparoso, joined local winemakers to […]
Sassicaia’s Flying Wine Maker Dottore Sebastiano Rosa
Sassicaia is a wine known and loved the world over. From a beautiful coastal hamlet in Tuscany, this Super Tuscan blend is hands down Italy’s most famous wine. It is also the world’s second most counterfeited wine after Chateau Petrus. So what is behind this success story? In 1948, the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta began […]
Mineral Waters to Improve Mineral Perception in Wine
One of the more confounding elements in wine is minerality. Even in the more comprehensive, advanced-level wine tasting classes I often see blank stares when it comes to this topic. Minerality is not something as easy to import into one’s wine lexicon as lemon, cherry, crushed basil or cinnamon. For most folks, fruits, herbs and spices are fairly familiar […]
Albarino
I like to say that Albariño is Miguel Migs. If you know music, you know this is the cool dude who mixes it up for the dance clubs in SoMa, San Francisco. With notes of apple, pear, lemon, lemon rind and toasted almond, tropical fruit, and occasionally, a vein of chalky minerality, this delicious, dry, […]
Xinomavro
Greece is home to some of the world’s most interesting grape varieties. For over 4,000 years, the rich, spicy red wines of the relatively frigid Macedonia region, especially those of Naoussa, have been highly regarded. Legend has it that Semele, mother of Dionysus—the Greek god of wine and fertility—called the area home. Established in 1972, […]
APPELLATION Naoussa, Macedonia, Greece
The Sommelier Journal August 31 2013 Catherine Fallis, MS Greece is home to some of the world’s most interesting grape varieties, yet the wines they produce have never received much fanfare. Even visitors to the country may not venture beyond a simple local white with a dish of freshly caught fish on a warm afternoon—or […]
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