Shhhh … Listen. All he said was “I’m buying 300 bottles for my grandchildren and if no one else buys it then I’ll keep more” … hook, line, and sinker ... I was hooked. When the owner of a winery (who also happens to be the wine maker) makes a statement like that, well, you just shut up, listen, and pay closer attention to the wine he’s talking about. Even if what he is saying flies directly in the face of what the critics said about the vintage you listen to the wine maker. He was talking about the 2014 vintage...

Last week, I wrote about the old mantra of “producer trumps vintage” - that you put your trust in wine producers that you know and like even in poor or bad vintages … this week, we throw all of that advice to the wind because I’ve tasted the future and everything's coming up Nebbiolo.  From what I’ve tasted so far the words 2016, Nebbiolo, and Piedmont are gonna be coming up a lot in the wine world soon and for good reason: the wines from Piedmont, at least the 2016 basic Nebbiolo and Rossos, have been stunning. Lithe and pure...

It was drilled into me some 20 years ago: Producer trumps Vintage. Always; Producer trumps Vintage. That is; if you have to follow either the vintage or the producer, that you follow the producer … ‘A good producer will always make the best wine possible even in poor vintages’. So what do the producers we care and hold in esteem do with 2017? We look to their Rosé wine ...The harbinger of the coming vintage is Rosé: it is the first glimpse into what can be made of the grapes from the year just gone past - think of it...

Wine shops are almost universally set up the same way: cheap wine at the bottom, middle priced wines in the middle, and spendy wine at the top - and that means you miss a lot by not looking down because sometimes the sweetest spot for the best wines can only be found way down at the bottom. Here are some of the reasons why the wine might find it’s way to the bottom shelf even though it’s quality is purely top shelf. There are times when it’s a matter of scale. A big and huge winery can moderate out their...

And if you feel like I feel, baby … then come on …From time immemorial we’ve been eating certain foods and drinking certain things to, well, to get it on. I’ve yielded some truly phenomenal wine pairing questions over the years in this exact area and, suffice to say, I’ve even seen the results about nine months later. So, ah, let me grove you … Chocolate … the ultimate modern aphrodisiac and also the hardest to help people with putting a wine too. Throw out the idea that chocolate and 90% of dry red wine actually go together - because...