A couple of blogs back I wrote about the concept of being a regular away from home (Being A Regular When You Aren’t, May 19th). I hope that the concept resonated with you and to prove that I do ‘walk my talk’ I did just that this past weekend while attending my daughter’s 16/U fast pitch softball tournament down in Salinas (California).

Salinas is a serious food municipality- but not in the sense of the word that you may be thinking. No ‘haute cuisine’ here and you’d be hard pressed to find a sommelier in town. That said, one can dine well if you know what to look for, and where to look for it. While Zagat, Michelin and the like may be the culinary bibles when you hit San Francisco or New York, my sources for smaller town dining are yelp.com, chowhound.com and roadfood.com. I see what each has to say, where the ‘Venn diagram’ connections are and start there. It takes a little bit of planning, but it’s just that easy. Continue reading »

Summer rolls around and that means a few certainties for me. First, I will be following and cheering for my daughter’s fast pitch softball team as they make their annual push to qualify for the Western Regionals. Second, I will be down at the Santa Cruz Beach & Boardwalk at least twice (my kids love theme parks) and third, I will get to visit a few Santa Cruz wineries on the way to or from the land of deep fried Snickers bars, over priced popcorn and over-the-hill musicians trying to stay relevant (Can anyone say Eddie Money!?)

All kidding aside, Santa Cruz is indeed home to a great beach community with its fair share of hippy-like ‘beach bums’, a terrific college (The University of California, Santa Cruz) and many a surrounding winery. Though wineries like Ridge and Mount Eden Vineyards are amongst the most venerable and established names in California wine, Santa Cruz is only recently on the global radar screen- and it’s long overdue. Continue reading »

As we deal with the challenges of our sluggish economy, wine sales are one of the first places we see economic attrition. I have always thought that wine sales should be made part of the ‘leading economic indicators’ index as they tend to foreshadow peoples confidence vis-à-vis which wines people are drinking.

Wines are indeed an epicurean ‘canary in a coalmine’ to our economy at large. When times are good and people are flush, people seek out the so-called trophy wines of Napa valley Cabernets, Grand Cru Bordeaux, and 1esr Cru Burgundies. When times are less rosy, those same wines often reappear in the market at premium wine auctions led by the likes of Zachys, Hart Davis Hart and Sherry Lehman.

In trying to save some dough, folks may trade down to wines that give pleasure but are not as expensive. ‘Tête de Cuvée’ Champagne (the Dom Perignon, Taittinger ‘Comte de Champagne’ sorts of bottles) gives way to tasty non-vintage bottlings. We see less 2^nd and 3^rd growth and more ‘Cru Bourgeois’ Bordeaux wines find themselves being “discovered” and enjoyed. Continue reading »

We all know that imitation is said to be the most sincere form of flattery. If that’s the case, then the wine industry’s practice of linking wines with place is the source of a lot of blushing… for the wine folks.

From the time that I began working in wine decades ago, this linkage has always been clear. The same grape producing wines in different parts of the world lead to different results, much like two chefs working with the same ingredients and recipes and coming up with two different tasting interpretations of a dish. Winemakers using the same varietal(s), equipment, barrel sources (and coopers), yeast strains and any other replicable variables can still make very different wines. Winemakers who create wines from the same varietal AND vineyard will, despite making different wines from their interpretive styles, will still have a thread of continuity.

Continue reading »

I just returned from speaking at the annual Sante magazine On-Premise Restaurant symposium in beautiful Manchester, Vermont this past week. It was a super event attended by lots of my peers and with great content in terms of the presentations and, of course, the food and wine.

During a tag-team session with Charlie Trotter‘s team (led by Conrad Reddick, the chef sommelier and company beverage director), as part of an interactive food and wine presentation, the subject came up about wine and food pairing and the importance of the emotionality or ‘emotional attachment’ factor that colors our perceptions of what we like. Needless to say, the same wine under two different circumstances can taste completely different simply by changing the environment, people and context. This is true as well of food- again based on your dining companions and, I would add strongly, the quality of service that you receive.

There’s complete truth to the old adage that a great waiter can save a bad meal but nothing can save a bad waiter. Delicious food served in a dining room that’s more reminiscent of a Keystone Cops comedy than a fine oiled machine will always fare poorly. Conversely, decent food served by a great waiter will always taste better than it actually is…we all know that first hand. Continue reading »

Did you know that among the fastest growing home furnishing categories at Target are home wine cellar units? Indeed more and more Americans have take to keeping and not just drinking wines. These cellar units that I referenced above are not with all the bells and whistles of those being made by companies like Sub Zero and Viking but they are nevertheless practical and effective and allow people to keep modest quantities of wines on hand and ready to drink.

The more pressing question is once you’ve made the decision to purchase wines to have around, what should you actually buy? Most of this is going to be based on your preferences and drinking habits: Continue reading »