California wineries make good red blends from Cabernet Sauvignon. I am not going to dispute that statement. But it bothers me when I hear wine drinkers discount the rest of the world’s producers. I swear if I took the label off the bottle of the Casillero del Diablo Reserva Winemaker’s Red Blend from Chile you’d […]

Where are you going to find a wine costing $9.99 a bottle and is rated 90 points by Robert Parker? The Wine Novice presents the 2011 La Carraia Sangiovese Umbria, an Italian red that is Bargain No. 4 in my quest to build a 12-bottle case of quality wine for under $100. La Carraia is […]

Mike Pigeon, the Wine Butler, put grilled lamb cutlets on the menu for a Saturday night cookout and we huddled briefly on the wine. A rich-tasting Pinot Noir was the first and only choice for the tender lamb, which would be complemented with macaroni salad, caprese salad (plump red tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, fresh garden-grown basil), […]

On a recent Friday night, when the Wine Goddess was taking a break from playing Kitchen Goddess, we ordered fish and chips with cole slaw from a favorite take-out place that knows how to “cook.” Because of the batter on the fish, I searched for a white wine that would cut through the fried taste […]

There’s nothing better than a good bargain, especially if it’s a red liquid in a bottle. Recently, I took off with the Wine Butler, Mike Pigeon, on a search-and-taste mission to find middle-of-the-summer wines that would go well with barbeque or as a patio sipper. He dared me to find 12 quality bottles of wine […]