I see it all the time – like Groundhog’s Day – people are interested in Italy, the cultures, the food, the fashion, the design, the statu...

PTI – ME! "It’s all about your brand!" "Why be a follower, when you can be an influencer?" "Make your mar...

F requent readers already know this little secret – Italy is in a full-blown Golden Age for wine. Never have we seen more great wine comin...

H ow important is vintage ? Does terroir prevail over the wind and the rain and the sun? Does a farmer, who works the land for 40 years, h...

I t started last night while I was looking for a bottle of wine to go with the lasagne. I wanted something a bit rustic, not too heavy, ma...

W hen Jon Bonné penned his groundbreaking book, The New California Wine, he caused a lot of us to look at wine in a different light. It wa...

Amor litteras ad Vinitaly M y dear mom was an extrovert. Being around people recharged her batteries, not that she needed them to. She wa...

I n recent days, in Tuscany, there were some terrific thunderstorms. Along with the rain, hail fell from the heavens. Not exactly an “under ...

O utside a storm is passing over, the sky rumbling in a way that is at once ominous and reassuring. Texas in April is not for the faint of...

W ith harvest behind us and winemaking for the year finished, Italians in the wine trade are living out of their suitcases. Traveling to m...

L iving in a country that is geographically isolated from much of the world by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, many in America tend to li...

W ith absolutely little or no pragmatic devices, and relying on instinct, I have hit a wall in the second decade of this new century, with...

T he other day I got a late-pay notice from a government agency. I fretted over it for a while, imagining all kinds of economic burden to ...

T here’s this natty new watering hole with a wood burning oven on Washington Street in Yountville. I’m waiting there to meet a friend and ...

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp (L) and Sergio Mionetto (R) I t’s one thing to try and grow a...