ShareI’ve had a lucky streak with barbera. Three standout glasses of this Italian-native varietal from two very different places made a recent impression on me; the samples I drank on a recent trip to the Sierra Foothills helped redeem an entire wine region. And unlike in “Goldilocks” no personal property was vandalized in my pursuit [...]

ShareFor four days now, I’ve been subject to a very strange feeling: sobriety. As in total abstinence, not a drop of wine, for 90.5 hours and counting. It’s not a feeling that I’m used to, and certainly not one I’d bring upon myself willfully. (A long weekend-long bender of progressive July 4 parties put me [...]

ShareThere’s no question that Napa rules when it comes to California — make that New World — wine, especially cabernet. No other region outside of France makes red wine as delicious, famous, and collectible as Napa.
That’s exactly why wine lovers should set themselves a challenge when they’re pondering a shelf or a wine list: Try [...]

ShareThe wine was great — red, white, and sweet Bordeaux from the acclaimed 2005 vintage — but the best part of the evening was hobnobbing with a real blue blood! Yes, that’s me with Stephan von Neipperg, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and managing director at Canon-la-Gaffelière, one of the producers at a giant [...]

ShareJust in time for tax season, here’s a list of my ten favorite wines that cost less than, well, a lot of stuff, including a bouquet of flowers, three trips across the Golden Gate Bridge — even Madonna’s new CD. To make it easier to find the wines, I’ve listed the four reds, one rosé, [...]

ShareOops, I meant The Wine Spectator, the magazine that one of my favorite retailers likes to make fun of by mocking its cultural imperialism over the wine world. In any case, some of you may have heard of the war of words between the folks at the venerable Napa winery Beaulieu Vineyard and The Wine [...]

ShareOne of the most contentious and (to many wine lovers) depressing things about wine is how much restaurants mark it up. On the average, restaurants will inflate the retail price of a bottle of wine by 100 percent — to cover, they insist, the cost of acquiring, storing, serving, and absorbing the expense of the [...]

Share“Qué guay. ¡Este vino me encanta!”
(Cool. I adore this wine!)
These are words I don’t hear often in Spain — coming from a native and directed at me. Usually it’s me on my knees, thanking a local for a super tip on a wine list, or for an insider connection to a friend and winemaker in [...]

ShareBecause it’s one of San Francisco’s greatest restaurants with a wine list full of trophies, we made reservations at Michael Mina to celebrate a big promotion. Five hours and more than four bottles of fine wine later, the four of us were feeling fully lubricated and nearly insolvent.
My notes for your vicarious pleasure:

ShareLast Monday’s Italian Wine Class got a little mental over Terra Rosa’s Brunello di Montalcino. Especially after our teacher Luca told us he seven bottles left of this wine, only 135-cases of which were produced, ten hands went up, chairs nearly tipping backward: “Can I have one?” Then, when one classmate slipped out the door [...]