KISS: Keep It Simple Sangria Recipe

Sangria may be a go to summer party pleaser, but what’s stopping you from making sangria for winter festivities?

Sangria is full of fresh fruit and just a bit sweet– that’s why it’s a great choice for winter — which is possibly why National Sangria Day December 20! With our help with a few recipes, you can get your Sangria on! Continue reading →

Season’s Greetings French Style for #Winophiles and what’s up 2019!

Joyeux Noël!
Today, December 15, 2018, is our last theme for 2018: “French-Style Season” with Host Lynn Gowdy from Savor the Harvest with samples for the fortunate (like me!) from Vignobles & Signatures via Michèle Piron/Vinconnexion.
What does “French-Style Season” mean?
You can read some answers in the invite post from some of the Winophiles; to help us come up with our version, I posed the question to a few friends who are also wine professionals and know France because they live there now or have spent significant amounts of time there.

Continue reading →

German Riesling and Fun Fondue With Friends for #WinePW

our line-up of German Riesling

Last summer when we paired four Riesling from Alsace with fondue, we thought it would be so much fun to get together in the winter by the fire and do it again but with a potluck of German Riesling and German food along with fondue.

Ask and ye shall receive!

Just in time for this month’s Wine Pairing Weekend’s deep dive into Germany with host Nancy Brazil, Continue reading →

Try Oregon’s Lady Hill for Washington Cab Franc

I’ll admit it: I’m not that big of a Cabernet Franc fan. In fact, if someone told me I had to choose what wine grapes I could take on Noah’s Ark and which I’d have to leave behind I’d have no problem not bringing Cabernet Franc onto the boat. Continue reading →

Bellavista! Italian Sparkling Wine From Franciacorta Paired with Shrimp and Pasta #ItalianFWT

Did you know…

Led by host Martin Redmond, this month the Italian Food Wine Travel group is checking out Italian sparkling wine and — you guessed it — we chose Bellavista Continue reading →

Seven Ports Prepared and Paired with Winter Fare

I will always remember my introduction to Port wine.

I had thrown my first “Warm Up The Winter” party with my house mates at our big old Craftsman house on the bluff above downtown Santa Cruz. We were celebrating that we got our hot tub fixed and I made my first batch of porter for the occasion.  Continue reading →

For #CarménèreDay, check out these 4 from Chile’s Concha y Toro

November is full of “wine days” — days set aside to celebrate certain wines. For example, Merlot Day is Nov. 7 (for unknown reasons), Tempranillo Day is set each year by TAPAS and is usually around the second week of November, then Beaujolais Day is always the third Thursday in November because that’s the day they release the Beaujolais Nouveau, Zinfandel Day is the third Wednesday placing it squarely in advance of Thanksgiving, and followed by Carménère Day Nov. 24

These wines are all relatively known and easy to find but what about Carménère?

Nov. 24 is Carménère Day because Nov. 24 is the day in 1994 that someone figured out that those vineyards of vines in Chile and the wines they were making from them weren’t actually Merlot but Carménère.

Seriously. 1994.  Continue reading →