The holiday season is upon us! Retail stores already have Christmas decorations up, and Starbucks is featuring eggnog lattes and peppermint mochas. Thanksgiving is next week, and while I don’t want to gloss over that holiday because of premature Christmas excitement, it is time to make plans for December events. For those of you who […]

Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won’t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week’s selection, the NV Domaine Ste. Michelle Extra Dry Sparkling Wine from the Columbia […]

The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg is a great book that gives very interesting and valuable information and suggestions for the food lover, or anyone else, who wants to learn more about wine. Those of you who are regular readers of Wine Peeps know that the book What to […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is DOC. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: DOC, initials which stand for Denominacao de Origem Controlada in Portugal and Denominazione di Origine Controllata in Italy, those countries’ counterparts of the French Appellation Controlee system of controlled appellations. In both countries, DOC wines represent […]

Hedges Family Estate, located on Red Mountain, is the largest family-owned winery in Washington State. Founders Tom and Anne-Marie Hedges created an export company called American Wine Trade in 1986 to sell wine to foreign importers. Out of that business came the establishment of a négociant-inspired wine called Hedges Cellars. Tom and Anne-Marie bought land […]

Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won’t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week’s selection, the 2008 Feudo Principi di Butera Nero d’Avola from the Sicily region […]

Founded in 1961 by Sir George Fistonich, Villa Maria Estate is New Zealand’s 4th largest winery yet remains family-owned. Villa Maria has two wineries, one located in Auckland and one located in New Zealand’s famous winegrowing region of Marlborough. They source grapes from all of New Zealand’s main winegrowing regions. Villa Maria produces between 800,000 […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is Amarone. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Amarone is the most famous of Italy’s dry dried grape wines and has recently been revitalized…. Amarone applied for DOCG status in February 2005 to ensure that it is made solely from Corvina and Corvinone, which […]