Wine clubs are very popular among newbie and seasoned wine lovers alike. It’s easy to understand why. You visit a tasting room, like the ambiance, like the wines, and like the friendly tasting room host. So when he or she offers you a way to get 20% off of your wine purchases, you jump at [...]

Wine lovers spend a lot of time talking about wine itself but very little time talking about the glasses in which that wine is served. As we have said before, good wine glasses do make a difference. However, before you roll your eyes in disagreement or, conversely, fear that you’ll have to take out a [...]

Only in America (and in some other New World wine regions) can you plant whatever grapes you want to plant where you want to plant them, irrigate if you wish, harvest the grapes when you want to harvest at whatever sugar level you desire, blend varieties as you wish, so on and so forth. In [...]

After more than fifty years since my first sip of wine, I have a pretty good idea of what I like in a wine and what I don’t like…and what’s good and what is not really good. And I’m not easily fooled by a wine whose proponents call it a product of unique terroir when, [...]

What first attracted me to this book, A Taste for Wine: 20 key tastings to unlock your personal wine style by Vincent Gasnier, Master Sommelier, was the subtitle, because I believe there are many wine consumers who sort of know what they like in wine but haven’t equated it to a particular wine style. “Wines [...]

When the infamous Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, his answer was, “That’s where the money is.” When I’ve asked winery owners from Eastern Washington why they’ve opened a tasting room in Woodinville, the answer has most often been, “That’s where the people are.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? In fact, I wrote a [...]

More than a few times I’ve had someone ask me, which is the ideal setting in which to review a wine, with food or without food? My standard reply is: when do you normally drink wine, with food or without it? For most people, the answer is with food. So the best evaluations of wine [...]

According to the latest list published by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, there are more wineries licensed with a Woodinville address than with a Yakima, Prosser, Benton City (Red Mountain), Spokane, or Tri-Cities address, more than anywhere in Washington State other than Walla Walla. This is especially noteworthy because almost none of these wineries [...]

Almost all of us have changed our spending habits to some degree during the economic storm of the past few years. The big unknown for all businesses is how we will respond once we feel comfortable about the economy again. Will we race right back after luxury goods of all kinds, including wine, or will [...]

President Obama and the wine blogging community have a lot in common. We’ve both come to the forefront in the last few years with a flourish of hope, excitement, and promise of great things to come. Unfortunately, just as with Obama, most bloggers have proven more adept at spending than generating income. Just as most [...]