On February 6th I was honored to attend a 10-vintage vertical tasting of the singular Il Caberlot wines of Podere Il Carnasciale. As you may know, Il Carnasciale is a Tuscan producer of wines made from a variety unique to them — what is believed to be a hybrid of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Proprietor …
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Lost in the technical details of malolactic fermentation, pH, green harvests, new barriques and old Slovenian oak, we can sometimes forget that wine is about stories. I wanted to begin the 2013 blog by sharing a few of those stories I experienced with several VinConnect colleagues (and friends) during a recent four-day trip to Tuscany …
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There are truly an overwhelming number of wine guides on the market these days and an even more overwhelming number of (established or self-proclaimed) wine experts writing for these guides – journalists, critics, sommeliers, bloggers, and a little bit of everything in between. Therefore, when I heard that a new classification of the “best Italian …
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Vinitaly — the event held each March that (pretty much) everybody in the Italian wine business has visited…at least once. It’s overwhelming, chaotic, impossible to park, and even more impossible to find a clean bathroom, but all in all, worth it. It’s a chance for trade and the common wine lover to visit Italy’s most …
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The Versilia, along the Tuscan coast in the province of Lucca, is a resort area generally known for its nightlife and as a hot spot for VIPs. Riviera locales such as Forte dei Marmi and Viareggio are legendary holiday destinations for some of Italy’s most famous faces with their wide, sandy beaches packed with umbrellas, …
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I was in New York on Friday to attend Gambero Rosso’s Tre Biccheri tasting tour. This is a large event showcasing more than 200 of the top, newly-released Italian wines. Each year at around this time they travel across the U.S., making stops in San Francisco, New York City and Chicago. While primarily directed to …
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This year’s 2011 edition marked the 20th anniversary of the Merano Wine Festival, the swanky wine fair held each year in the fairytale village of the festival’s namesake, Merano, at the foot of the Dolomite Mountains in the Alto Adige region of northeastern Italy. In the guise of VinConnect’s Italian director, I had the opportunity …
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