Last year I attended Appellation Alentejo masterclass led by Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein and tasted Portuguese wine (for the first time, if you don’t include port) from the Alentejo region. Since the seminar, I’ve tried quite a few Portuguese wine samples and have loved all of them, from white to red. So this summer during […]
wine tourism
Giving Paris a Second Chance
I’ll be honest, my first impression of Paris was a bad one. It took two more trips to finally understand why people love the city. When I gave Paris a second chance, we flew into Charles de Gaulle, explored the city for a night and a day, and then took a high speed train to […]
Appellation Alentejo Wine Seminar in Houston
I don’t know which has the stronger influence on me: wanting to travel somewhere because of the wine, or purchasing wine because of somewhere I’ve traveled…both? Last week I attended Appellation Alentejo masterclass led by Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein and tasted Portuguese wine (for the first time, if you don’t include port) from the Alentejo […]
Discover Valdichiana at ICCC
I may be less than 10% Italian, but I LOVE Italian culture: the food, the wine, the fashion, the cars and scooters, the people, the history, and especially visiting the country. I was invited to attend Discover Valdichiana at Houston’s Italian Cultural and Community Center hosted by Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas for an evening […]
A Visit to Hambledon Vineyard near London
Last month I checked a thing off my bucket list: visiting an English sparkling vineyard/winery! We visited Hambledon Vineyard near Portsmouth and Southampton, about an hour train ride from London. We enjoyed a tour hour tour and tasting, and it was one of the most, if not THE most, comprehensive tour and explanation of the […]
Niagara Trip Report (Part 2: Wine)
A guest blog post by Tracy Continued from: Niagara Trip Report (Part 1: Waterfalls) Day 3 – Exchanging Waterfalls for Wine On Sunday, we scheduled a wine tour of Niagara-on-the-Lake and were thrilled to temporarily escape the massive crowds surrounding the Falls. We booked a private tour with Wheelz Niagara (https://www.wheelzniagara.com/packages/private-day-tour-with-niagara-region-hotel-pick-up). Bernie picked us up just before […]
Niagara Trip Report (Part 1: Waterfalls)
A guest blog post by Tracy The idea of visiting Niagara Falls had been thrown around many times over the years but, for some reason or another, had always gotten pushed aside in favor of other destinations. However, last November, my boyfriend, Steve, informed me (quite out of the blue) that he’d taken it upon himself […]
A Malbec Horizontal Tasting
Recently I was encouraged to reconsider malbec as a more nuanced wine than previously thought. Not all malbecs are grown and made the same, so why would we expect them to taste the same? And why hadn’t I thought of this before? My geology and wine loving friends and I got together to explore four […]
A Burgundy Wine Tour for the Blissfully Ignorant
A guest blog post by Tracy Let me tell you right up front that I’m no wine expert. While I greatly admire those who can brilliantly describe a wine, from its complexity to its flavor profile, that’s just not my strong suit. The most valuable piece of information to me is simply whether or not […]
A Downtown McKinney Walking Wine Trail
I’ve been known to wander off and/or modify plans to accommodate winery visits when traveling. So when we were in the Dallas area earlier this summer for a birthday party, we made a slight detour to the northeast to the small and charming Texas town of McKinney and visited a couple wineries within walking distance […]