One of the takeaways from this week in New York was the admission by a surprising number of industry and journalists I met with who said they just don’t read wine blogs like they used to. This comes on the heels of the breaking news in ...

Photo from the film by Lisa ScafuroExcuse me for this diversion- I’ve been in New York all week for meetings and importer tastings. This seems to be wine week in NYC. I’ve seen everyone; New York has turned into a little wine town of fri...

Maybe it was the way he raised the glass when he toasted the group at our gathering. Perhaps it was the conversation we had about my next trip to Italy and where I was going. Or maybe he had grown used to it, after all these years. He wa...

Friends of mine in Austin have a restaurant, called Trento. They asked me to set some of their friends up in the Italian town of Trento for a three day wine visit. That is the impetus for this post. I thought it would also be fun to shar...

This past trip to Italy, I had the chance to wander the streets of Milan with a camera. I’d been hitting it hard at Vinitaly and on the wine trail, but the country seeps with emotion. Ever since my first trip to Italy, I have looked at i...

There once was a time when one hungered for knowledge of the great wines. If one couldn’t taste the old classics, one could always read about them in Michael Broadbent’s book, The Great Vintage Wine Book. Or one could work for a company ...

I woke up this morning and didn’t know where I was or what day it was. I’ve been traveling a bit lately. Fortunately I was in West Texas and among friends. Which, considering my orientation, is no easy task. Something about Vinitaly has...

Photos by Col. Chris HadfieldOnce I arrived back home from Italy and the Vinitaly show, I spent two days on my back in bed, exhausted from a most intense visit to Italy. It was a great trip, but too much crammed into it, so I paid the pr...

When we arrived to the place we would be staying after Vinitaly, we first stopped at the nearest neighbor’s house. They are shepherds from Sardegna who moved to this remote corner of Tuscany many years ago. I loitered around one of the f...

“One of the best Vinitaly in years” would probably be my way to say it. Along with all the hustle and confusion that this Italian wine fair comes with, there are also a lot of good things that come out of it.Number one is that this is an...