T here is another story I really want to tell , but this one comes first. Last week I had a few fellows over for a birthday meal — they were...

...my 6 bits worth T here is something about a birthday that both excites and terrorizes me. Of course, the excitement comes from an early...

(homage to Gianni Di Venanzo) T erry Theise has a new piece up wrangling for the defense of "fine wine" as a category. His method...

T here's a press release sitting in my inbox announcing that the Amerigo Vespucci — Italy's training ship, the so-called most beaut...

O f late, wine has been coursing through my thoughts. Not the alcohol — that's not what this is about. No — it's what wine did to my...

from the archives Great-Grandfather Assuntino Luigi Cevola in Palermo - 1890's I never knew my Great-Grandfather, Assuntino, but I met...

In continuation from here ...     A fter the dinner Giorgio’s wife made for us, we sat around in his drawing room sipping on Cynar. It was A...

S ince migrating away from the wine trade, I have been able to devote more time to a long-time love of mine, photography. Of late, I have pa...

I' m walking around a wine shop. Filled with wines from all over the world. The place is abuzz with sales reps and suppliers waiting to ...

 from the archives... On Italy, and what it does to a person March 2011 · Italy: Without a Doubt "When it all gets to be a little to...

Ecce Homo A nother press release arrived in my inbox, this one from Sicily. Assovini Sicilia, the island's wine producers association, w...

A master sommelier flew into town last month and put on a master class in Sicilian wine. He was good — prepared, a little nervous, which in...

I have been thinking about this word for a long time. In October of 2009, I wrote a piece I called “ Paralyzed in Paradise ” — a fever dre...

O nce upon a time, it was enough to put a good selection of wines on your wine list and have a stable of equally attractive wines by the gla...

F ranco was a good soldier of the vine. Every year he would trudge off to Verona to go to the Vinitaly wine show. Every year he would talk w...