Can I get an ice bucket for my red?
If I'm in a restaurant and ask for an ice bucket, you're much more likely to see a bottle of red on the table (and a surprised server) than you are to see a white. And I'm likely to wave away the proffered ice
Topic
Food & Wine
A collection of 143 posts
Our most memorable wines of 2012
As we move forward into the new year, I asked some of our key team members to reflect a bit on what wines stuck with them from 2012. Some chose Tablas Creek, but most did not (and those who did all chose different wines!). The wines they chose are every
Poulet demi-deuil and Beaucastel: A truffly duet
By Robert Haas
The end of fall and beginning of winter is the season that we enjoyed wonderful black truffle dishes during our travels to visit vineyard proprietors in France. Alas, although we have learned to produce fine wines in California, we have not been able to do black truffles
Making Olive Oil In-House For the First Time
Our last harvest of the year is olives, which we typically pick in late November or early December. In an ideal year, we might get some frosts before the olives are ripe, but we won't get any hard freezes, because if the olives freeze then they rot and
A Flash in the Pan
By Darren Delmore
The mood on Election Night was as tense as a cold vintage Condrieu inside the dank, red velvet-lined interiors of Bern's Steakhouse in Tampa, Florida. Home of the largest private wine collection of the world and any cow’s worst nightmare, the windowless, carnivorous
Seeing red -- and green -- in Santa Fe
By Darren Delmore
Before spending a week in New Mexico for the 22nd annual Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta, I called my gastroenterologist to inquire about getting my esophagus lined with stainless steel. It seemed like the smart thing to do. The residents of New Mexico’s high desert
A Family (Winemakers) Trip to the Golden Gate
By Darren Delmore
As we loaded up nine cases of wine into the Subaru on a sunny Sunday morning, I immediately got the drift that two days of representing TCV at Family Winemakers of California’s San Francisco tasting wasn’t going to be a relaxing, casual affair. Pouring 108
An anniversary dinner of rack of lamb, roasted tomatoes and avocado salad with Esprit de Beaucastel
This is a busy week of celebrations for me. Meghan's birthday was Friday. Sebastian's birthday is Monday. And our anniversary was Saturday. As it's squeezed between other parties, we often keep it low-key, and certainly compared to Friday night's amazing dinner
A Summer Dinner in Vermont
By Robert Haas
One of summer’s greatest challenges for the Vermont gardener is keeping up with the zucchini production. So we need to find recipes in order to benefit from our garden and, of course, wines to accompany them. Here is an old standby recipe inspired by The Victory
An evening fit for a prince (or a Hearst)
I get to pour wine at lots of dinners, and even more tastings. Doing so is a key piece of how we have chosen to market ourselves: not just waiting for people to come and discover us, but going out to where they are and introducing ourselves. It's