It was great to finally be back in Piemonte after a few years’ hiatus. Piemonte is probably the wine region closest to my heart, as it was here that the idea for VinConnect developed some 16 years ago and the location of the first wineries to hear about (and adopt) the idea. With a few new winery partners added since
It had been a few years since I had done wine visits in Germany. Despite traveling to Dusseldorf each spring for the annual wine trade fair ProWein, I had not had a chance to visit our partners or other individual estates since prior to Covid. With several new German winery partners added since that time, I knew I needed to
It had been a few years since I had the pleasure of escorting a group of VinConnect customers on a tour of one of Europe’s major wine regions. The global pandemic interrupted our plans, and while I personally have been traveling and visiting our estates in various countries over the past few years, coordinating a customer group had been more
These days wines from Sicily (and specifically Mt. Etna) are among those gathering the most interest among U.S. consumers, sommeliers and wine media. I know a bit about the region and have enjoyed the wines for several years, but do not have the kind of detailed knowledge of Mt. Etna’s grapes, soils and wines that I do of most of
Given the recent rapid growth of VinConnect it has been several months since I have had the time to get away and visit a wine region. After some consideration Spain bubbled to the top of my destination list — it had been years since I had been to Spain, and the combination of our existing winery partners there along with
Three of VinConnect’s top customers and I recently traveled to Italy for a wine tasting trip to Piemonte, the home of Barolo, Barbaresco and Alto Piemonte, as well as the legendary Nebbiolo grape that stars in all three. As this was VinConnect’s third trip in the past 5 years, we leveraged our many existing relationships to have some memorable visits
Three of VinConnect’s top customers and I recently traveled to France for a quick trip to three of its most venerable wine regions — Champagne, Burgundy and the Northern Rhône. That’s a lot of ground to cover in only six days, but we were overdue for a trip and looking forward to what the travel would bring. Monday — Champagne
As you may know, about once a year I invite several of VinConnect’s customers to join me on one of my wine tasting trips. This year the location was Italy’s great Piedmont region, home to the famous wines of Barolo and Barbaresco. I’ve described our agenda in great detail below, highlighting the top wine(s) for me from each tasting. Enjoy!
Visiting wineries in Europe can be a very different experience from visiting them in the U.S., for a variety of reasons. Largely these reasons all relate to the fact that wineries in Europe are more generally agricultural operations, not tourist attractions — the are typically small, family run operations, and few if any have the kind of public “tasting rooms”
On my recent trips through Paris, I have been compiling a list of the Top 10 Wine Bars there and wanted to share some information about them. In addition to writing this post, I’ve also created a Google map of my Top 10 Wine Bars in Paris — if you’re in the city, feel free to use that as a
We let Americans with a passion for Old World wine connect with and purchase wine directly from many of Europe’s best estates.
