“It’s the most amazing wine I’ve ever had,” my friend said as he led me to his kitchen. “I drank it the entire time I was in Spain and have been saving a bottle since I went there.” Read more

My mouth hung agape for several seconds, after which I went into what turned into a 30-minute treatise on the basics on viticulture, winemaking and fermentation. A remarkable thing happened, though: he wasn’t bored. I’m so used to friends and family closing their eyes and putting up their hand after a couple minutes of my wine-geek babble and saying, “OK Josh, that’s enough. I was really just being polite.” Read more Read it in print

The expensive daytime excess of the Meatpacking scene$750 magnums of champagne, as much as $20,000 spent at a tableis gluttony that would give Marie Antoinette pause, but some city venues, many within the past few weeks, have stripped away the ostentation and high cost of the party brunch and added their own flavor. Read more Read it in print

It’s officially summer, and for me that means it’s officially rosé season. Because nothing breaks the heat quite like a chilled bottle of dry rosé. Living paycheck to paycheck, I look at these special wines as mini summer-vacations-in-a-bottle. Read more

You’re sitting across from your boss (who fancies himself a bit of a wine geek) at dinner. The sommelier presents the bottle, then asks if he’d like it decanted. Your boss replies with an ardent affirmative, and the sommelier carefully pours the entire bottle into a decanter. Read more

Temping is a hellish gig with few rewards—and little pay. It’s definitely worse than working in the food service industry, because at least there you get a free meal. Back in the early 2000s, I took a “long-term” job running the reception desk at the Standard Bank of South Africa. It was your typical phone-answering position for the majority of the first week. Until Friday afternoon. Read more Read it in print

I was walking a bottle of my restaurant’s excellent Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to table seven when I realized, mid-stride, how warm the bottle felt in my palm. Before I had a chance to turn back, however, the table saw me. I was locked in and had to present it. Read more

My wife and I honeymooned in the south of Spain. It was a compromise. She wanted the beach. I wanted Europe. So we went to a European beach. My secret plan the whole time, however, was to get down to the area of Spain where sherry is made. Sherry is, in my humble opinion, the most maligned and underrated wine produced in the world. Read more Read it in print

A couple weeks ago, I talked a bit about the basics of matching wine with cheese. I am going to assume that not everyone who read this has a plate full of $30-a-pound artisanal cheese hanging out in the fridge. Because of this, I am prepared to give you some more practical options for wine and food pairing, using the same ideas I set forth for matching wine and cheese. Read more Read it in print

“Ah, yes,” he sighed, “Now that’s a Pinot Noir.” Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you: Don’t be this guy. Not because he waltzed in at 8 o’clock without a reservation on a Friday night and announced to the host that we must have a table for him because he knows the owner (although that is reason enough, in my book), but because he committed the most egregious folly that any faux-wine expert possibly could. Read more Read it in print