In an article in this morning’s New York Times, Open Table has announced plans to integrate suggestions and discussion into their site, emulating the popular Chowhound.com and Yelp.com formats.
This plays directly into Jermey Iggers and Andrew Zimmern’s recents posts regarding the role of the critic in restaurant decisions. If you use Open Table, and [...]
Filed under: Ideas - Restaurants | Leave a Comment »
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat has done an excellent job keeping people up to the minute on the wildfires of Northern California. As of now, we have not heard of any damage to wineries or vineyards, but that could change with a moment’s notice.
You can go here for a current, up to the minute, [...]
Filed under: California | Leave a Comment »
(photo: City of Oporto by Flickr member Francisco-PortoNorte)
It’s late June and here in Minnesota the bugs are starting to come out and pretty soon by 3:00 in the afternoon that heat will start to be a bit too much for most people. Or maybe it’s the humidity … that magical invisible meteorological condition [...]
Filed under: Ideas - Restaurants, Ideas - Retail, Portugal | 1 Comment »
(photo: Terry Theise Champagne tasting, from Vinography.com)
Vinography had a great posting last fall regarding tasting through the Terry Theise Champagne portfolio. Alder always has wonderful information and descriptions, and it’s always a pleasure to read his blog. Many of you locally know Terry as the guru of German wine importing, and thanks to [...]
Filed under: France | Leave a Comment »
We’ve all seen them, and it’s amazing how easy it is to rent one, but I don’t think wine retailers need inflatable gorillas. Maybe an inflatable Pinot Noir stem, or an oversized 1970 Ridge Montebello, but not a gorilla.
However, the idea of drawing in customers sure has appeal. Retailers in Minnesota lament the [...]
Filed under: Ideas - Retail | 1 Comment »
One of the hot topics in the wine world for the last three years has been the ‘globalization’ of flavor profile. We have all heard the stories and many have tasted the results … Pinot Noir that is more like Syrah, Cabernet from fill-in-the-blank that is loaded with hedonistic flavors, overt use of oak in [...]
Filed under: General wine information, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
This past January I went to France motivated by the opportunity to find the newest and best emerging wine producers. I covered over 3,000 kilometers from Champagne all the down to Rousillon near the Spanish border in the span of ten days. I tasted with 114 producers and more than 1,000 wines. [...]
Filed under: France, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Some of you know or remember Ryan Opaz. He was the manager of a local wine shop in the west metro of Minneapolis until a few years ago, when he and his wife decided out of the blue to pack up and move to Spain. Ah youth! They didn’t even speak Spanish [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
At World Class Wines we talk quite a bit about the organic, biodynamic, and sustainable wine movements. We also realize there is much misinformation out there and that the general public often does not know how to approach this important subject. In stores and restaurants city wide we still hear “so that means no [...]
Filed under: Wine and Food Events | Leave a Comment »
