What do the best wine directors drink when they go home from work? Saturday, Sept. 21 you’ll get your chance to find out at the Wine Connextion when Sam Messina reveals his eight favorites during a tasting event at the North Andover store on Main Street. Sam is one of the most knowledgeable wine directors […]
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Fall feast: Pairing the perfect book and wine
The Barnes and Noble package arrived the other day containing the four books I’ve selected for my fall reading schedule. I’ll enjoy them while sitting next to the fire, in the pergola, under the stars, on cool autumn nights. My al fresco reading will be complemented by sipping a glass of full-bodied red wine, a […]
Five wines that deliver a late-summer kick
Here are wines I’ve sampled recently which represent high quality and values. • 2011 Healdsburg Ranches Sonoma County “Unoaked” Chardonnay, $9.99 — It’s nice to taste the chilled minerality and fresh fruit without big, buttery oakiness, and this wine offers great sipping for this price. Clean grapefruit, apple and pear settle in nicely on the […]
Like wine, daylilies are worth savoring
It’s a bit sad when the last bloom of the Wine Goddess’s garden of daylilies desiccates like a raisin, surrenders its summer grip from its stem, and returns to the earth from which it sprang. Autumn is here. The life of a lily’s glorious bloom is but one day, hence the name daylily. The plant […]
Wine, winning (hopefully) and Saratoga Springs
In a little more than a week, I’ll be heading out on my annual trip to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to take in the horse races, visit a few favorite restaurants, and greet old acquaintances. This year, because of the election season, I won’t be going with my regular group of horseracing buddies for this weekend’s […]
Thinking inside the box just got a lot better
Several weeks ago a woman who recognized me as “the wine guy” tapped me on the shoulder in a CVS store and asked if I had ever tried wine in a box. I replied that I hadn’t. She seemed disappointed. She said she was at a beach party when the hosts brought out a box […]
Need a Folk Festival party wine? Try Beaujolais
The Lowell Folk Festival is this weekend (July 25-27) and thousands of visitors will descend on the city for a good time. Someone asked me what wine I would suggest for a festival party on the patio deck or backyard lawn. A few cool choices popped into my head. If it’s red that you prefer, […]
Star keeps rising at Bledsoe's Doubleback Winery
Drew Bledsoe is taller (6-feet-5-inches) in person than the NFL version that filled TV screens for 14 pro seasons.That was my first of many impressions upon meeting Bledsoe in his Doubleback office in downtown Walla Walla, Wash.The second is that his hands are big and strong — good for tossing a football and farming a […]
My Great Pacific Northwest trip: 136 wines in 10 days
I’m back from a 10-day trip to the Great Northwest in which the Wine Goddess and I logged more than 1,100 miles visiting 18 wine-tasting rooms and six vineyards in Oregon and Washington State. Lewis and Clark we weren’t. Martin and Lewis — as in Dean and Jerry — was more like it. When the […]
'Patriotic' wines to salute The Fourth!
In keeping with the patriotic spirit, here are my two Fourth of July wine selections: Federalist Zinfandel 2011, $17 — What better way to celebrate the nation’s birth than with a wine paying homage to Alexander Hamilton, a great Founding Father who was General George Washington’s most trusted military aide and a leading author of […]
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