This title needs explaining.  Montepulciano is one of those incredibly confusing names in Italian wine that can be applied to a grape, village, and style of wine made by the eponymous village.  The village (in southern Tuscany) and style are Montepulciano and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, respectively.  This blog is not about those, even though they delicious in their own right.
No, this blog is about the grape Montepulciano, which I have become a big fan of over the years.  Perhaps it is because I imagine this grape to be the …

What’s your favorite thing about wine?  There are innumerable answers to that question but for me the clear winner is that wine presents endless opportunities for exploration.  Wine is fascinating because it is always changing, growing and being driven forward by adventurous growers and up and coming regions.  The last few decades have seen a remarkable expansion of the varietals, styles and regions available.  Just think, who would have ordered Malbec off a menu ten years ago?
The so-called New World of wine has been at the forefront of this expansion, …

I get asked a lot of questions about how to pair wines with different types of food, what goes with what and so on. How about pairing a single wine to work with seven different food items? Sounds challenging huh? Well let me tell you first hand it certainly can be. It started when our Chef Bryan Moscatello and I were looking back at our trip to Italy before we opened Potenza. We loved sitting outside these small restaurants whether it was in a city like Rome, Siena or Orvieto …

I was sharing some fun wine stories with our restaurant staff during a wine training class this past week. Since I had spent a tremendous amount of time in Napa Valley, I was asked about some of my favorite places, where did I used to hang out, visit and was my favorite restaurant my namesake Bistro in Healdsburg and so forth. One story I mentioned was the first time I drove to the top of Spring Mountain in Napa in a very beat up CJ7 and saw firsthand a winery …

To close out, what has become a series of posts about dessert wines, I feel it is fitting to share how I was turned on to my other favorite Icewine.  Going back about 20 years ago, I was working in Boston running a snazzy restaurant in the South End where I was introduced to a totally crazy Canadian who owned a winery in Ontario on the Niagara Peninsula of Canada. I had always felt that Canada had great beer and mediocre wines at best. But when I met Donald Ziraldo …

In the continuing the discussion of dessert wines from last week, I promised to discuss some of my favorites. As I had mentioned about the many ways in which dessert wines are produced, I had said how much I love Tokaji. Hungary’s Tokaji wines have always had a powerful yet mysterious reputation. One of the reasons was the exotic location of the tiny picturesque vineyards, sheltered by Russia’s Carpathian Mountains.  It is about 200kms from Budapest in northeastern Hungary. Its fame also owed something to the reputed healing powers of …

Last week I discussed Port wine which was caused by a previous blog about Portuguese wines. This has gotten people asking more questions about dessert wines. Where does this all end? I was asked how dessert wines are made and what my favorite dessert wine was.  It is common knowledge to some that I do have an active sweet tooth. In most cases, I would be completely content after a meal to forego dessert and opt to have a dessert wine to finish a meal. Throw in a good cigar …

Last week I had discussed the fun and exciting wines of Portugal. I did that since I thought most people only knew Portugal for Port. I got a slew of questions this week about Port….go figure.
To start with, Port is what is known as a fortified wine. This means simply that an alcohol in this case is brandy, is added to the wine to stop the fermentation process and protect the sugar within the wine. Port comes from the terraced slopes above the Douro River in the north of Portugal. …

I was asked about wines from Portugal the other day and it’s wine history. I get the wildest questions. At least it keeps me on my feet. The guest was shocked that there are so many fine wines coming from there these days. Portugal basically is a country in the process of change. I say this because a new era has already begun and the old style still prevails. The old order, as it were, is one of which red grapes are fermented with their stalks and without mechanical …

There is so much to learn and discover about wines, which is why there is also a great deal of misinformation and myths floating out there. I have compiled a list of some of the top myths about wine.

The Cork
It cracks me up with the way some people spend so much time and energy examining the cork once it has been removed from the bottle. They smell it, squeeze it and have quite a ritual with it. It does nothing to help you tell if the wine has an issue. …