Albarino is a crisp, light, white wine that originated in Spain but in recent years has started to be produced in California and Australia.  It tastes like a a cross between Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, and Gewürztraminer.  A perfect wine for summer it pairs well with seafood, especially shellfish, and is great to have with salad.  A bottle of Albarino will set you back between $12.00 and $25.00 so you can try bottle without risking your retirement or your kid’s college education.   Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I’ve made two trips to Willamette Valley over the past two years to taste Oregon wine from the area.   The wineries we visited were: Ayoub, Archery Summit,  Ayres,  Domaine Drouhin,  Argyle, Soter,  Penner Ash, Coelho, Roco,  Sokel Blosser, Cristom, Adelsheim, Left Coast, Domaine Serene,  Utopia, and Winderlea.  On one of the trips my wife and I stayed at the Ley Puy Inn .  The inn is owned by Lea Duffy and Andy Kosusko and we found the accommodations clean, comfortable, and the inn was nicely decorated and very well maintained.   The setting was relaxing and the breakfasts were unique and tasty. They  went out of their way to make us feel welcome and help us enjoy the area.  Lea  set up appointments for us at some appointment only tasting rooms and they made dinner reservations for us at Painted Lady , and at Recipe two restaurants that we thoroughly enjoyed.  Before I discuss the wineries in mo...

Valpolicella is grown in the Veneto region (North East Italy just outside of Venice) and has several personalities depending on how it is processed in aged.   Valpolicella is a wine region not the name of a grape.  A number of different grapes can go into a bottle of Valpolicella the most prominent of which is a grape hardly anyone has ever heard of called Corvina.  The most well known personality is basic Valpolicella.  It is a light bodied wine, has alcohol levels of 11-12%, and is a great wine to have with Pizza, lighter meats like veal, or heavier seafood like swordfish.   A bottle of Valpolicella should cost between $8 and $15. The most regal personality for Valpolicella is Amarone.   Amarone starts out with the same grapes as Valpolicella but before fermentation starts the grapes are dried out, traditionally on straw mats but now through a variety of processes, so that the juice that remains is very concentrated.  The wi...

If you have always wanted to  travel to some of the most interesting food and wine locations in the world check out:  http://www.foodandwinetrails.com/ .  They feature land based trips to many wine regions as well as wine focused cruises. Most of their trips feature special programs organized by wine makers and wine experts.  The prices are not for the faint of heart, but if you can swing it the trips should be great experiences and let you experience things through the eyes of the experts.

Want a nice glass of wine but just don’t want to pay a lot of money for it?   Use the following suggestions:    Good cheap white wine is easier to find. Because most white wines are made to be enjoyed right away, and many red wines are meant to be aged, your odds of getting a good white wine at any price point will be better.  It also takes a lot less work to produce a white wine (with the exception of Chardonnay more on that later).  For that reason, your odds of getting a good bottle of cheap white wine you will be much greater then getting a good cheap bottle of red wine. Buy wines that don’t need oak New oak barrels are expensive and lose most of their flavor after they are used once or twice so they constantly need to be replaced.  Because of that any wine aged in oak will be more expensive then wine aged in less expensive containers like stainless steel or cement.   Oak aging adds at least $5 to the price  of a b...

One of the things my friends have the hardest time with is which wine to pair with which food.  As a general rule you don’t want either the food or the wine to overpower the other, or when combined bring out the best in each other.  Everyone is different, if you enjoy it don't worry about what anyone else says. That said what follows is how I generally choose a wine to pair a variety of foods. The wine in bold is my primary choice, the following are choices that work also work well. There are always exceptions, and a lot depends on seasonings and sauces but if you follow the suggestions below you should be pleased: Beef Filet Mignon/Tenderloin:   Petite Sirah , Right Bank (Merlot Dominant) Bordeaux Blend, Merlot Grilled Steak : Cabernet Sauvignon , Left Bank (Cabernet dominant) Bordeaux Blend, Zinfandel Non Grilled Beef : Merlot, Syrah/Shiraz, Right Bank (Merlot dominant) Bordeaux Blend. Hamburgers : Syrah/Shiraz , Zinfandel, Merlot Corned Beef : Ca...

We just got back from our first wine tasting trip to Temecula.  The place kind of reminds me of how Disney would create a wine tasting area.  It was really cool but in a manufactured sort of way.  Most of the tasting rooms were stunning.  A lot more opulence then you would see in Paso or Santa Barbara. The reason for this the fact that one of the main economic drivers for the area is attracting people that want to have weddings in "wine country".  So it is as important for them to create the "wine country" wedding experience as it is is that as import as it is to create wine.  They have to make sure that what they offer matches the  vision that the bride and groom have when they thinking about "wine country".  Because it is so competitive if they don't have it they have to manufacture it thus all the magnificent tasting rooms.  The wedding operations are also why many of the wineries also operate restaurants. Now that we got that out of the w...