Baby wants Amarone
Always planning ahead, I am, and this year you can skip the chocolate-covered chocolates on Valentine's Day and buy me tickets to Vinitaly instead. I know it seems like our favorite romantic occasion is months and months away, to say nothing of the MAJOR PRESENT HOLIDAY we have coming up toot sweet (still stuck for a Christmas present? Easy solution: Trip to Paris), but its never too early to start cogitating on how to wow the love of your life is it? And we know how these d
Like misery, gluttony loves company. So if the chance to eat like a pig and drink like a fish in the company of a few thousand of your close personal friends gives your inner glutton a woodie, check out the Las Olas Wine & Food Festival. From 7:30 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 1 and 2, more than 60 local restaurants and 100-plus wineries will do their best to make gluttony socially acceptable... and to benefit the American Lung Association. Participating restaurants include 3030 Ocean,
John LinnSven Vogtland is the Advanced Sommelier at the Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale,
and a 13-year veteran of the craft who has recommended bottles in the sunny
Virgin Islands and in far-away Vietnam. In this column, Vogtland will
discuss the latest trends in wine, from what bottles and regions are
blowing up to the newest cocktail crazes. This week, Sven talks about what wine to pair with the most popular of Italian foods: pizza."For me, wine is about where you are at and who you are drinking
Photo by Flickr user chickeninthewoodsCheap pinot noir is a moron. Cheap, good pinot noir is an oxymoron. Pinot noir, you see, is the Sarah Palin of grapes -- flighty, erratic, unpredictable, hard to handle -- though unlike the nitwit from Wasilla, the result can be anything but simple and stupid. It's that ornery nature that demands exceptional skill from the winemaker, not to mention exceptional fruit, typically produced from low-yielding vines planted in limited areas
The world of wine speaks a language all its own. Urdu, mostly. With a soupcon of bullshit and a faint whiff of pretension. So in keeping with Clean Plate Charlie's commitment to calling a spade a goddamned shovel, he presents this modest glossary of wine terms for your amusement, edification, and eventual disposal. Cheers! Bouquet, n. Aroma; alternately, stench Cork, n. An enclosure that ruins almost as much wine as it protects Corkage, n. The process by which a restaurant inflate
The story of Robert Mondavi is as depressing as it is inspirational. Probably no single person did more to put California on the world wine map, not only as a vintner who produced wines that rivaled some of the best of Europe but as an evangelist of New World wines, an industry power who used his influence to help it grow and improve, a benefactor of numerous causes, and a spokesman for a more civilized lifestyle of which food and wine were integral parts. Eventually it all went to hell
Bill CitaraIt's always more fun to root against the Big Guys, especially when it comes to wine. That sweet little boutique winery tucked away on some back-country road in Napa or Sonoma has a lot more caché than a mega-giant wine processing plant that looks like an oil refinery and is owned by an even more mega-giant corporation, whose CEO has probably never, ever gotten shit on his shoes by walking the rows through his vineyard. On the other hand, you can't argue with what's in the gl
