WINE

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

Portuguese wine production dates to ancient civilization but it is a rather unfamiliar region for wine drinkers in the United States. You may know of Port or Madeira or even Vinho Verde. But have you heard of Alentejo, Dao or Tejo? Meet Ayesha Trump (no relation) of Douro Vino Selections who is on a mission to bring artisanal wines from across Portugal to the United States.

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Ayesha never thought she would be taking people on a journey into Portugal’s geography, cuisine and history through its wines. Born in Mexico, she was working as an oil consultant and traveling for work. While in Spain for work, she decided to take a vacation weekend to Portugal. On a warm summer night, she found a tiny restaurant in Lisbon where the owner gave her a mini-master class on the wines of Portugal. This amazing experience embodied Portugal and Ayesha fell in love. As she explained, “I fell in love with the entire package, the food, the wines, the culture.” She emptied personal contents from her suitcase to fit a few bottles of wine in to bring home.

11 January, 2017

Downtown Santa Barbara was not a city I was very familiar with despite its proximity to Los Angeles. Typical weekend trips usually consisted of bypassing the...

09 January, 2017
This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.
Describing wine is not the easiest thing to do. When you are starting out, when asked to describe what you smell, you might say that you “just smell wine.”
But as you taste more, study more and hone your palate, you may start to describe sauvignon blanc as “citrusy with notes of lemon, lime and green grass” or pinot noir as “earthy with aromas of dried cherry and mushroom.”
How do we learn to describe wines like this? And once we can describe wines, how do we begin to understand how to pair wine with food? At the Paradise Ridge tasting room in Kenwood, sensory experiences with herbs or chocolates highlight the chemistry and fundamentals behind food and wine pairing. annette-mcdonnell-and-the-sensory-experiences-at-paradise-ridge-winery-kenwood-tasting-room-2
Tasting Room Manager Annette McDonnell joined the Paradise Ridge family in 2008. McDonnell was raised in Sonoma and has worked in the culinary world at Park Avenue Catering under Sonoma County Chef Bruce Riezenman and in catering with Café Lolo. At Paradise Ridge, she has been able to combine her passion for food, wine and hospitality to create a unique way to educate people about wine and food pairing.
06 January, 2017
This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.
Count Dalmau Cebrián-Sagarriga, the owner of Marques de Murrieta, came to the U.S. recently to present his historical 1986 white Rioja from their estate Castillo Ygay. dalmau-cebrian-sagarriga-1
When I was invited to taste the wine, I was intrigued but little did I know what I was about to experience. This was not just the tasting of a 1986 white Rioja but rather a white Rioja that has been in barrel for 26 1/2 years. That is not a typo. It was aged in a barrel for 319 months before being bottled.
Castillo Ygay is one of the labels under Marques de Murrieta, a family-owned business that dates to 1511. Marques de Murrieta’s original property is in Rias Baixes in the northwest of Spain. A small property that totals 75 acres, they produce albariño under two labels: Pazo Barrantes and Le Comtesse.
Then, 40 years ago, Dalmau Cebrián-Sagarriga’s father purchased the property in Rioja. This property consists of 750 contiguous acres in the Alta Rioja. This is the largest estate in Rioja and they are the only winery not purchasing any grapes. In Rioja, there are four labels: Marques de Murrieta, Capellania, Dalmau and Castillo Ygay.
30 December, 2016
This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

If you drink wine, the wines of Bordeaux need  little introduction. There are the First Growths that collectors clamor over and there are the AOC classified dry, medium-bodied red wines and white wines that are affordable but also somewhat generic.

At Vin de Jardin (Garden of Wine), the goal is to make a wine that is bright, fresh, easy to drink and does not taste like all the others. Winemaker Marco Pelletier and his partners Jean Terrade and Gérard Pantanacce wanted a wine that displays power but is balanced. With Vin de Jardin, they have done that.

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Marco Pelletier was born in Canada. Working as a civil engineer, he came to France in 1997 where he first fell in love with wine. He took a sabbatical and worked harvest in Champagne.  “Bit by the wine bug,” Pelletier decided that he no longer wanted to work as a civil engineer and applied to a sommelier program in Canada. Denied acceptance at first, Pelletier persevered, and when there was a cancellation, he took the spot. He may not have been a first choice at the school but subsequently he excelled and won a scholarship.

28 December, 2016
This post originally appeared in Wine Tourist Magazine It is red, slightly sweet and slightly effervescent, that is how I would describe Brachetto d’Acqui DOCG, a wine I fell in love with when I was living in Piedmont, Italy several decades ago. I was not a wine drinker at the time and did not have the foresight to know that I would be a student of wine and a professional in the business these many years later. But, this was the wine that started it for me. I was living in Vercelli, a town of 50,000 in Piedmont in northern Italy. The rice capital of Italy, Vercelli is less than an hour drive to famous wine areas such as Asti, Barolo and Barbaresco. Every afternoon during aperitivi time, I would head to a local bar to meet my new Italian friends. I did not speak Italian at the time and would let them order what they wanted for me. And every day I was presented with a refreshing glass of this slightly sweet, slightly sparkling red wine, Brachetto d’Acqui. Brachetto d'Acqui WHAT IS BRACHETTO?
21 December, 2016
This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.
If you grew up in the 1980s, as I did, you must know the song “Whip It” by Devo. Just hearing the name of the song, I start to sing: “When something’s going wrong you must whip it. Now whip it into shape. Shape it up. Get straight. Go forward. Move ahead. Try to detect it. It’s not too late to whip it. Whip it good.”
When I was invited to have lunch with Gerald Casale, one of the founding members of Devo, I could not get the song out of my head. While he is still a musician, Casale is now a winemaker as well with a small label called The 50 by 50. gerald-casale
Gerald Casale was a student in Ohio studying art and 20th century comparative literature when he and his brother, along with three others, started Devo. With the success of their band, they moved to Los Angeles in 1978, about the same time as the birth of California cuisine.
Coming from a blue-collar background, Casale was familiar with “bad wine and processed cheese.” But with some money and an innate curiosity, Casale soon became friends with chefs such as Wolfgang Puck, Michael McCarty and Bruce Marder, with whom he would drink Burgundy wines from their cellars.
14 December, 2016
Les Marchands Wine Bar & Merchant, located in the Funk Zone in downtown San Barbara, is a wonderful wine bar/retail shop that features local and international wine selections that each tell a story. It is a popular place for a glass or two of wine and a plate of cheese or small bites from afternoon to night. But now you can start earlier in the day with brunch as Les Marchands offers brunch beginning at 10am on Saturday and Sunday. A friend and I met for brunch at Les Marchands on a Sunday morning. We sat on the patio and ordered glasses of bubbles. It was Sunday brunch. bubbles But we also ordered a flight of wine, which includes three two-ounce pours of white, red or progressive (sparkling, white and red). After all, Les Marchands is a wine bar. We selected the white flight and enjoyed tastes of Chateau de Chasseloir melon de bourgogne from the Loire Valley in France, Bruna pigato from Italy and Tyler chardonnay from Santa Barbara. Varying levels of acidity and minerality, these wines were lovely to sip along with our meal.
09 December, 2016
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