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Diversity: A gift to be embraced!

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If you were given the choice of only one emotion for the rest of your life, would that be fair? Imagine you picked, or were given, happy. On first blush, awesome, right? Meh? Don’t think so. If you saw your bank balance at zero, would you not want to feel sad? If you saw something bad being done to someone, would you not want to feel angry? If your kid did well in school, would you not want to feel proud? If someone schools you in something, would you not want to feel humbled? I think you get the drift. My point is it would be hard to limit your life to one emotion. Hold that thought. I’m often asked, what is my favorite wine? Sigh!! I don’t know. I don’t have one. I like so many. I find every wine interesting. I see the beauty in diversity. I find it easy, almost seamless, to appreciate and see the best in a lot of different wines, varietals, regions, etc. I’m always open to trying a new varietal, a new region. I’ve reached a point where my mind is like a sponge. It absorbs everyth...
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Napa: More Than What’s in the Glass

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Napa is easy to write about. You can write about the Cabernet. The scores. The Michelin-starred restaurants. The spectacular estates. You can write about which winery to visit, which bottle to buy, and which vintage got 100 points. But after visiting Napa enough times, I’ve realized those aren’t necessarily the things I remember. I remember the people. The conversations. The unexpected pour. The bottle someone opened that they probably didn’t have to. The wine I tasted years ago that I can still somehow taste in my mind. Somewhere along the way, Napa stopped being just a wine destination for me. It became a collection of memories. I’ve been fortunate to collect quite a few. At Alpha Omega, tasting their futures was one of them. There is something fascinating about tasting a wine that hasn’t been released yet, still evolving in the barrel, without a score or reputation telling you what to expect. It’s a small glimpse into what the winemaker believes that wine might eventually beco...
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Wine Classification - There’s a New Sheriff in Town

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Wine classification was complicated. You had to know what AVA, terroir, and varietal  meant. You had to know the regions and their geography to know what the wine might  taste like or what grape it might be. You had to know terms like DOCG, Grand Cru Classé,  Reserva, and dozens of such acronyms if you needed a prayer to predict what the quality of  wine might be like. The French famously never mentioned the grape on the bottle. They just mentioned the  region and how the châteaux were rated during the times of Emperor Napoleon; the great classification of 1855. The authority, the standard of standards. First growth from the same château and vineyard commanded an extra digit in the price. A château that produced an 1855 classified Grand Cru Classé and sold an approachable second growth for $200 sold wines made from the same vineyard and its first growth for $2,000. You had to absorb details about soil types (clay, limestone, gravel), diurnal shift, mountain...
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Italy - In Vino Veritas

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A very close friend of mine visited Italy recently and brought me back a magnet with the words “In Vino  Veritas,” which translates to “in wine there is truth.” And truth be told, my visit to Italy in late 2022 and  what I witnessed there was definitely mind-opening. More on that in a bit. Rewind to 2020/21 and the world was grappling with the lockdown and sullen nature of Covid. Stuck at  home, I remember spending most of 2021 researching, trying, and collecting Italian wines. One thing that quickly hits you when it comes to Italian wine over any other country, I think, is that it’s like a game of Monopoly that never ends. You try a region. Then you try another region and varietal, then you find a few more regions and varietals, and then you realize this game just keeps going on.  There is the light, fruity, flowery Sangiovese from Tuscany that is like a gentle wind that blows a single strand of hair on a summer day. Then all of a sudden here comes a gale storm fro...
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Wine Isn’t Complicated

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Wine is complicated. I’m not a wine person. I like whites, not reds. Reds give me headaches. I don’t like Pinot  Noir, it’s too sour. It’s an expensive habit. I have no idea how to pair wine with food. And perhaps the one I hear most  often: I just like bubbly. These are some of the most common responses I’ve heard from family, friends, and acquaintances. Most people have developed a fixed opinion about wine that can be surprisingly hard to change. It’s not entirely their  fault. The wine industry, and, if I’m being honest, many people who know just enough about wine, have helped create the aura that wine is inherently complicated. That it requires a certain level of sophistication to enjoy. That your nose needs to identify every flower, herb, fruit, and spice imaginable, and your palate must distinguish butter, brioche, wet  leaves, vegetal notes, minerality, and umami. By the way… what is umami anyway? Is that even a word people use in everyday conversation? Th...
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Bordeaux - The Biggest wine myth I ever believed

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It was our 25th wedding anniversary, and I had decided this was the year we’d finally make our bucket-list trip to Bordeaux. Before I ever booked a flight, though, I kept hearing the same things over and over.  “Bordeaux is out of reach.” “They’re arrogant.”  “They think they’re the best in the world.”  “They look down on New World wines.” “The French aren’t exactly known for being welcoming.”  In other words, Bordeaux had somehow earned a reputation for being the most intimidating place a wine lover could visit. Well… spoiler alert. None of that turned out to be true. Not even close.  Since it was our silver anniversary, I wasn’t about to compromise on the itinerary. If we were going to Bordeaux, we were going to dream big. So I reached out to the very best. Château Margaux—arguably one of the greatest red wine estates in the world. Château d’Yquem—the legendary producer of Sauternes that U.S. President Thomas Jefferson reportedly couldn’t get enough of. Châtea...
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