Don’t travel through Glendale often, and never been to the Glendale Civic Auditorium, but I’ve covered numerous Garagiste events in LA held at The Wiltern, Santa Monica Bay Women’s Club and Union Station. Traveled to Paso for the event more than once, beginning with their first fest in 2011. And very happy to see that…
It was a thrill to taste the newly released 2012 wines (and one 2014!) from Mystic Hills Vineyard because…every wine from their first release has received awards from various competitions! (Read more here) And this, just their second release, is poised for the same level of achievements. I invited a few wine lovers over to…
It is impossible to know every great winery in Napa, or in any reasonably sized wine region, in my opinion. So I didn’t feel too terrible that I was unfamiliar with Titus Vineyards – though this year they are celebrating “50 years of farming in Napa Valley.” I was ready to rectify this in a…
Last week I wrote about the Abadia Retuerta LeDomaine Hotel, Winery, Refectorio and Santuario Spa north of Madrid, Spain after a splendid meeting with their General Manager Enrique Valero Quintana. I introduced readers to Tesse in West Hollywood, where our meeting took place, and gave you some information on their wine store. This week I…
Try to imagine: an award-winning winery, hotel and restaurant – all built into a restored 12th century abbey in Spain. A small group of wine writers were tasked with that very thing a couple of weeks ago. And between a stellar wine and food pairing luncheon with Abadia Retuerta LeDomaine GM Enrique Valero Quintana and…
In all of my 10 years writing about wine and spirits you would think that nothing surprises me anymore. Not the case when I met winemaker John Munch at Le Cuvier Winery. Not only did I learn a bit about some of his unique winemaking techniques, I also was treated to three hours in his…
Have you heard of tiny houses? There’ve been a few television shows about them. My wife Karen occasionally watches them and I’ll sometimes lift my head up from wine-related Facebook conversations to see what’s up. Basically, people downsize to a minimum level of possessions and space requirements in order to live in very small residences,…
I did the Carmel-by-the-Sea Wine Walk three years ago. At that time I stayed in nearby Monterey. What a difference not driving makes! Free to finish a taste and not pour out everything, I still split my tasting with my husband Eddie, but this time I enjoyed visiting MORE tasting rooms: We started at the…
When my longtime friends at Mystic Hills Vineyard, vintners Joel and Judy Cox, sent me their latest five new releases for review I wanted to share the wines with some wine pals for a group tasting: and NINE ladies were thrilled to join me. I was excited too, as I would taste their first white…
Luckily for everyone at the Union des Grands Crus Bordeaux tasting of the 2012 vintage there already was a buzz going. It may have accounted for the long winding line, that moved really fast once the doors to the venue, the Museum of Flying at Santa Monica Airport, were thrown open. Guests also knew they…
