As Leonardo da Vinci once said, "See you on the other side."    Back after a break. Thanks for reading.   © written and photogr...

from the archives ... H e's been gone fifteen years, this son of New Orleans, father and mentor to so many of us. Al was one of the for...

R ecently, I was invited to come to Italy for a visit, all expenses paid. I politely declined for personal reasons. A few weeks later I was ...

H ow’s your week been? Here, the past week has been challenging. Family health issues, the heat, the economy, the war, the dead babies, the ...

…or, looking for a safe place to buy groceries… …or, looking for a safe place to worship… …or, looking for a safe place to go to school…...

I don’t know how it happened, but recently I was talking to an acquaintance who never knew what I did in my career. I mentioned something a...

Hey Torquemada, this is all you’ll get out of me… H ere’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. In regards to the wine trade, the wine w...

from the archives I ’m sitting at a table, in a restaurant, with a seminal figure in white wine. The beverage director comes up to us to ...

T en years ago on this blog, I was still working, and I wrote a post called An Eternity of Mondays . “Your job isn’t who you are,” the lit...

O ne of the distillations I’ve arrived to, at this late hour, is that ultimately everything is about love. And that includes any and all thi...

T hat was the conveyance via the social media thoroughfares on Wednesday April 13, 2022 as the most recent iteration of Vinitaly was winding...

The following is a speculative compilation deriving out of anecdotal missives from friends in the wine trade who are in Ukraine. This is onl...

I n the book, “The Sicilian,” by Mario Puzo, there was a passage on a curved archway above a cemetery near Palermo. On that archway was the ...

From the archives D riving along the scuttled roads of urban Austin, I finally found a parking place, after 10 minutes of searching. By some...

I n three weeks, barring any further unforeseen crisis and impending world events, Vinitaly 2022 will commence. Having test driven Vinitaly...