| The Wine Buying Guide for everyone (as long as you're in the USA) | | Posted Monday, February 06, 2006 11:17:05 AM by Rose Martins | How much do you really know about wine? Do you appreciate a good wine, but still don't know how to make a great selection? Do you have someone you'd like to impress with a fantastic bottle of great wine?  Then this is the book for you. WINE BUYING GUIDE FOR EVERYONE by Andrea Immer is the perfect pocket sized companion for someone wanting to know more about wines.
This book includes about 400 different wines sold in wine stores and supermarkets throught the USA, as well as the wines offered in restuarants. The Buying Wine In Restaurants chapter, is best read before you get to the restaurant in order to save you an embarrassing or uncomfortable moment.
This book contains a wide variety of lists, including the 25 most popular white and red wines - the choice made according to taste and value, the Best of the Big Six Grapes and the Best of the Bargain Priced Wines.
Most of Immer's reviews are split up into categories and include the opinions of thousands of surveyed consumers. She rates the wines from 0-30 in taste and value for money. Immer also makes use of symbols to indicate "The best of a category."
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| | | CATHERINE RABB | ON WINE: Savvy wine merchant can help you make the right selection | | Posted Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:47:51 AM by Blog57 Team | | One question I am asked over and over by new wine lovers is how to purchase wine confidently. For advice, I went to the pros, retailers at four wine shops that are known for their service and fanatically loyal customers. We got advice from Chuck Richards of Reid's Fine Foods in Seventh Street Station; Robert Balsley and Dave Meisle of Arthur's Wine Shop in Belk at SouthPark; Brian DuBois of The Wine Shop on Park Road; and Anne Elam and Doug Harris of Douglas R. Harris Jewelers Fine Wine Division in Gastonia. As seasoned retailers, they all had encouraging words for new wine buyers. Becoming a regular at a shop can pay off, says Richards: Aligning yourself with a wine merchant you have confidence in and can communicate with can help you spend your money more effectively.... | |
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| | | The Planner | | Posted Sunday, November 05, 2006 10:47:58 PM by Blog57 Team | | Gift of Reading. Donate new or like-new books for children and teenagers at Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose starting Monday to Dec. 1 for the Mercury News annual Gift of Reading Program. Books will be sorted by age group, so please do not wrap your books. Feel free to enclose a short note telling the child what this book meant to you. Drop-off location will be the Concierge Center (located near MAC and Lancome Cosmetics). Information: 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd., Santa Clara. (408) 248-4451. www.westfield.com/valleyfair. Cosmetics Trend Show. Join top national make-up artists and creators for a showcase of the season's newest makeup, skin care and fragrance trends on Saturday at Nordstrom Stanford Center. Tickets are $15, redeemable toward your $15 or more cosmetics purchase on the day of the event.... | |
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| | | Wine Tasting Kits and Caboodles | | Posted Friday, October 27, 2006 10:48:29 AM by Blog57 Team | | Wine tasting may seem like something that is on special reserve, geared only for those who are expert wine drinkers. Intent on discovering fruits of a winery's labor, these connoisseurs set out to serve as judges and juries of the bottled world, as if deciding the fate of a wine that stands trial, accused of being bad. But, however expert-like wine tasting may seem, it's not just for those who are experts, connoisseurs, or even seasoned drinkers; wine tasting is also for beginners. For those of you who view wine as a stranger, too intimidated to approach it in a bar, wine tasting is a necessary and helpful practice. Wine tasting serves many purposes. First of all, it gives you the ability to find out what kind of wine you truly enjoy, helping you decide what wine you should order at restaurants and store in the cellar.... | |
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| | | Mayer-Crow concert tour plays Hartford Saturday night | | Posted Wednesday, October 18, 2006 2:47:39 AM by Blog57 Team | | Bridgeport native John Mayer will be back in the state Saturday night at 7:30 for a concert at the Dodge Music Center in Hartford with co-headliner Sheryl Crow. Expect a few songs from Mayer's upcoming album Continuum, which is really quite good and scheduled for a Sept. 12 release. Tickets for Saturday's concert, which also has Mat Kearney on the bill, are $55-$75 pavilion and $25 lawn. There's more than Mayer at the Dodge, though, starting tonight at 8 with a show from Steely Dan, which has former member Michael McDonald opening. Tickets are $55-$95 pavilion and $25 lawn. Friday night at 7:30 the Dodge hosts Hippiefest: A Summer Concert for Peace and Love with the following blasts from the past: Blood, Sweat & Tears, Felix Cavaliere's Rascals, Rare Earth, Mitch Ryder, Canned Heat, Mountain, Country Joe McDonald, Melanie, Badfinger and Denny Laine.... | |
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| | | A treat for the palate | | Posted Sunday, October 08, 2006 10:47:40 PM by Blog57 Team | | The Tularosa Basin Second Annual Wine Festival Saturday offered a variety of New Mexico wines for people to sample, and gave four area wineries a chance to market their product. The setting for the event, the historic St. Francis de Paula Church school yard, provided a relaxed, courtyard atmosphere where people strolled from booth to booth tasting wine. The lush, green atmosphere of the surrounding neighborhood enhanced the casual ambiance of the festival. The weather was ideal as well. The partly cloudy skis made for very mild and pleasant temperatures. Each of the four New Mexico wineries offered something distinct and unique for novices and connoisseurs alike. Arena Blanca, a Tularosa winery owned by Tim and Clarissa McGinn, had a diverse selection of flavors from which to choose.... | |
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| | | 2006 Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival Offers Tastes, Sips and ... | | Posted Thursday, October 05, 2006 12:47:52 PM by Blog57 Team | | (Atlantic City, NJ) -- If you like good food, fine wine and famous chefs, you'll love the 2006 Atlantic City Convention Center, running from Friday, October 6 through Sunday, October 8, 2006. With more vendors than ever and a bevy of celebrity chefs such as the Food Network's Cat Cora, this year's show will be a true palate pleaser. There will be plenty of samples to taste, plus gourmet gifts, kitchen cabinets and appliances, cook books, spices and sauces, microbrew beers and wines, cooking demonstrations and contests, live music and more. A wine pavilion is included in the general admission ticket cost, and wine enthusiasts can also attend a special wine seminar for an additional admission fee. Restaurant Row Pavilion will return, featuring chefs from popular area restaurants, who will offer free samples of their specialties.... | |
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| | | South Africa: Wine - Exports | | Posted Friday, September 29, 2006 6:47:34 PM by Blog57 Team | | AMID all the excitement of the rand's fall -- R10,40 to the pound in early May and more than R14 now -- the wine industry has been strangely silent about its redemption. If the exchange rates had persisted in the range of R10-R11 to the pound for another year, a significant number of producers would certainly have been insolvent (I suspect that in fact many are). No matter how well they did their jobs, there was no route -- over which they had control -- for them out of their predicament. Many are making better wine now than ever before. SA's share of international honours has been growing steadily and the vintages in the pipeline are among the best in the country's recent history. Wine makers are increasingly adept at their profession. The new generation is better trained, more widely travelled, and more aware than ever of the global environment.... | |
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| | | Welcome to the wonderful world of wine | | Posted Wednesday, September 20, 2006 2:48:01 AM by Blog57 Team | | Don't know your Chardonnay from your Pinot Grigio? Not sure if White Zinfandel goes well with your pasta? Think choosing wine is a pain in the Shiraz? If you consistently leave the liquor store with the same old bottle of wine, you may need a wine primer. So how does the average Joe start learning the basics of wine? .... | |
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| | | Food stuff | | Posted Wednesday, September 06, 2006 4:47:23 PM by Blog57 Team | | Blending in ? The masters of meat at Morton's Steakhouse in Troy are offering people the chance to try to make their own wine. No, you won't have to cultivate grapes or stamp out the juice ? it's really a wine-blending seminar. Working with Napa Valley's Franciscan Oakville Estate vineyards, the lesson comes complete with wine kits, the advice of an expert wine representative, and samples of Morton's signature hors d'oeuvres. At the end of the class, the expert will try each group's blend and decide which is the champion blend, awarding each "student" in the winning group a $50 Morton's gift certificate. Sept. 14, at Morton's, The Steakhouse, 888 W. Big Beaver Rd., Troy; call 248-404-9845 or visit mortons.com to make reservations; lesson is $45. Franc talk ? The folk at Ann Arbor's slow-food restaurant, Eve, will be continuing their tour of France, region by region, with an installment called "South by Southwest," though it has nothing to do with the beer-soaked Texas music fest and everything to do with southern France.... | |
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| | | A growing taste for culinary travel | | Posted Friday, September 01, 2006 10:48:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | Travelers seem to have a healthy appetite for culinary tourism, whether it involves making caldo verde or sipping Cabernet Sauvignon. "It's definitely a growing market. I think it's becoming a very important market as a subset of cultural tourism," said Dr. Rich Harrill, director of the International Tourism Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. "It's really a fun thing to do," said Barbara Courtney, 54, of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, who spent three days in March taking cooking lessons with her daughter in Tuscany. "When I travel I like to do activities. I'm not a go-sit-on-the-beach kind of person." While there has been little research into the growth of food tourism, industry insiders are expanding their offerings to keep pace with demand.... | |
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