Traveling the Vineyards from Italy to California
Layne Randolph, Napa Valley Register, August 2017 Technically, it’s the French who say rosé; the rest of us have adopted their usage of the word. It’s right that we use the French version; France is the indisputable land of rosé wine. From Côtes du Rhône to Provence, rosé has been a French favorite since long before its recent boom in popularity. Scoffed at for decades, rosé hasn’t gotten a lot of respect from the typical […]
James Suckling believes millennials will change the way the world approaches wine. The members of his small staff of innovators are all under 30, and he relies on them heavily to influence the look and feel of his brand. These days, James Suckling does more than write wine reviews, he produces wine-related documentaries, puts on international wine events, and collaborates with luxury designers to create new products for the wine industry. James divides his time between […]
My mission here: To explore the Etna DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) wine region and to find out what was percolating on Mt. Etna, other than the still-active volcano.
“The Tormaresca project began with the dream, now a reality, to discover and enhance the precious native varietals of Puglia, leading the wine renaissance of the region.” Tormaresca Website We actually cheered when we finally saw a building in the distance. We had been driving for hours across Italy from Rome and in the last half hour, we had seen very few signs and only one indicator of our goal: Tormaresca Winery, in the Castel […]
The Lambert Bridge Cruising through the vineyards on narrow, curved roads, we come to a sudden stop in front of Lambert Bridge. It’s only wide enough for one lane, so we have to wait for the car coming from the opposite direction to pass through. Once over the Lambert Bridge straddling Dry Creek, we arrive at Lambert Bridge Winery. The winery, named after the original owner, Jerry Lambert, is also a reference to […]
Jean-Charles Boisset is known as a winemaker with inimitable style, and he’s curated some of his favorite things and put them on offer at the JCB Tasting Salon and Atelier in Yountville, California. And the glamorous and decadent JCB tasting salon is not your average tasting room, either. The room sparkles as brightly as the JCB bubbles, punctuated by a glorious chandelier over a gigantic extended table in the center of the room. The myriad […]
Bormio, just south of the Swiss border and smack in the middle of the Italian Alps just a few hours from Milan. The natural hot springs of the area have been in continuous use for thousands of years and are now contained in a lovely resort called the Bagni di Bormio, (the Baths of Bormio). Pliny the Elder was already going on about their beneficial properties back in the first century A.D. And throughout the […]
Years ago, I lived in the seaside village of Otranto, Italy, and studied Italian at Porta d’Oriente, a school that advertised a half-day sea/half-day school approach to learning. Since then, I have dreamt of this region of Italy known as Salento. It seems God has blessed this part of Italy with glorious treasures: turquoise water, rock cliffs, long stretches of natural beaches, and bleached-white buildings that make up the tiny villages that hang over the […]