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What Wine Goes with Shakespeare? Summer Sonnets and Wine at the BCAE, Boston

Cathy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:00:00 PST

Drinking wine every day in Boston means getting to know Boston - its people, its spaces, its quirks, its rules, its rule-breakers. But pick anything and do it daily in Boston - wine, bird watching, snapping a photograph wherever you are at 7:37 p.m., whatever - and you've carved out your angle for viewing this city in a very individual way. You'll see what's current and just-now-new. But - and sometimes this is even more int ...

Secret Fizz Recipe Revealed...

Dirk — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:45:00 PST

I know I am supposed to talk about wine but sometimes other beverages fit the time and place too perfectly to ignore. Don't leap to conclusions and assume that I am a lush but... last weekend a bunch of friends and I conducted some research into "morning drinks." While some love Champagne in the a.m., I am not one of them. It seems too acidic and the bubbles tickle. On top of that, some hotels and ...

The Wine You Don't Love Back, Even When You Want To

Cathy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:48:00 PST

There are times when, for different reasons, you really really want to like a wine. Maybe it's your best friend's favorite. Maybe everyone else at the table is raving about it. Maybe it was a gift from your college roommate who's just returned from two months in Bali and wants to share her escapades over this particular bottle.But – try as you might – the wine just isn't doing it for you.And you do try. You try it at different times of the day. You try it with food. You try it without food. You ...

Zipping Through Spain Online with Bin Ends, Braintree

Cathy — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:30:00 PST

Having friends over to share some wine is a lot like drinking a cup of tea. Neither happens quickly, and no one runs for the door afterward. Especially not after tasting six different wines in less than an hour, as we did tonight for the first online tasting that Bin Ends wine shop in Braintree hosted on Twitter.com.There were many reasons to linger, sip, and discuss. Six wines in under and hour was just too zippy, especially when there was so much new material to work with: with unfamiliar grap ...

Panini...That's Italian for Sandwich

Dirk — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:14:00 PST

My kids are comfortable asking for a panini. At their age, I hadn't ever heard of a panini...let alone tried one. Hey, I grew up in Oregon where we may have missed some things but we knew beer! (I also missed out on cappuccino, latte, and all the other things that make Starbucks a universal source of caffeine. I still like the scene from You've Got Mail...no, not the Meg's food scene in Harry Met ...

20 Questions for Richard Auffrey

Cathy — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:28:00 PST

Tell me about your website, www.passionatefoodie.blogspot.com. What content do you cover? What is your geographical focus??My blog deals with anything related to food, wine and spirits that sparks my interest. It includes reviews of restaurants, bakeries, markets, wine shops, wines, spirits, books, movies and other items. It also includes essays, commentary, upcoming events, recipes, polls and much more. Though my primary geographical focus is on Massachusetts, especially Boston and the northern ...

Cocktail Hour -- or Breakfast? -- at Dante, Cambridge

Cathy — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:57:00 PST

The lounge area at Dante, in the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, may be the only place in town where popping open a laptop alongside your Sam Adams is acceptable and, dare we say, cool.At cocktail hour Dante is full of twenty- and thirty-something techie types for whom days and nights blur together in their devotion to work that is omnipresent. That blurring – of daytime, nighttime, and everything in between – seems to have flowed over from Dante's cliente to its chef and its bartender.I faced my of ...

Crude Oil and Champagne: Can't Live Without 'Em, Can't Afford 'Em

Mari — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:54:00 PST

Last week I filled up my tank to prep for my four hour drive to beach. $86. And I don't drive an SUV. Dayum - I think I've seen one-way airfares to Florida for less than 86 bucks. $4.22/gallon - haven't seen that kind of craziness at the pumps since the reign of Jimmy Carter.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes...

Dirk — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:29:00 PST

Lately, we have been having magnificent sunsets in Napa Valley. The days have been ending with a surreal display of orange and red that seems to have been lifted out of one of the Star Wars movies (...before they introduced all those annoying characters). Why red? Simple, it's smoky. A physicist can explain wave lengths, absorbance, reflection and refraction...but I can tell when it is smoky (because it has been on the news and I can SEE ...

The Bastille Day Bash that Wasn't: Cafeteria Boston

Cathy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:54:00 PST

Maybe they got it confused with Cocktail Week.Or maybe it was me who was confused. Here I was, all along, thinking a Bastille Day celebration would have something to do with France.Either that idea is too conventional for the hipper-than-thou crowd at Cafeteria Boston, or they know something I (and the annals of French history) do not. Either way, the Bastille Day Bash at Cafeteria Boston was not a bash, and it had nothing to do even in passing with Bastille Day.We left early.Here's why, for sta ...

26th Annual Paso Robles Wine Festival

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:02:00 PST

Visit the centerpiece event of California's fastest growing wine region, Paso Robles.

Sexy (?) Cocktails for Cocktail Week at Vinalia, Boston

Cathy — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:31:00 PST

You don't have to hit me over the head with a bottle of Ménage à Trois to know that sex sells. But no where does it sell more blatantly and more relentlessly than on the cocktail menu.Sex on the Beach. Between the Sheets. Very Sexy Cocktail. With competition like that, the cocktail menu at Vinalia on Summer Street in Boston – featuring The Flirt and Fallen Apple – seems pretty tame.This week Vinalia's special Cocktail Week menu features A Spanish and Italian Love Affair – that's G-rated, almos ...

Organization, Handouts, and Peppery Languedoc Syrah at Vinodivino, Newton

Cathy — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:04:00 PST

Vinodivino held a tasting of southern French wines in their tiny but impeccably organized shop in Newton this afternoon. The provenance of three of the four wines was the Côtes du Rhône but one – the 2006 La Sauvageonne Coteaux du Languedoc Les Ruffes – was from the Languedoc. It caught my attention for many reasons.I'm in the middle of a bad streak of wines from the Languedoc. More precisely, it is Languedoc whites that have put the bug in my ear this summer. Reds are another story. For example ...

What Wine Goes with Salt? Lobster and Chardonnay at Excelsior, Boston

Cathy — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:42:00 PST

Excelsior's Summer of Lobster promotion is a draw. One and one-quarter pounds of Maine lobster heads the menu – each week it's a different preparation – along with a wine pairing recommendation to match. Later this month you'll find wood-oven roasted lobster tail and a lobster clambake, but tonight's menu featured the lobster with spaghettini Carbonara with pancetta, peas, and parmigiano-reggiano. I dove in. The lobster claw meat was cooked to just the right texture; the tail meat, still in its ...

What Wine Goes with Braised Pig's Head? And More from Sommelier Smackdown! at Gordon's, Waltham

Cathy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:22:00 PST

Gordon's Sommelier Smackdown! is good theater.There's drama. Two competing sommeliers (tonight it was Kelly Collins of Rialto and Nick Johnson of Craigie St. Bistrot) taste four courses one at a time, then they have four minutes after each course to case the store and choose their perfect pairing off the shelf.There's live cooking. And the chefs soak up the spotlight indeed.And then there are the curveballs, otherwise known as secret ingredients or culinary enhancements of an otherwise standard ...

20 Questions for Diane Manaham of Pamplemousse, Salem

Cathy — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:42:00 PST

This week on 365daysofwine.com we're talking about the geography of a wine store. Tell me about how your wine section at Pamplemousse is mapped out. What does it look like, and how do people find their way around??Mapping wine is somewhat difficult, there are so many ways to categorize and space is limited. What has worked for us is to separate Old World wine and New World wines because they usually have different audiences. All of our French, Italian, and Spanish wines are grouped together. We ...

Bastille Day Preview: Red, White and Bleu Wine and Cheese at Les Zygomates, Boston

Cathy — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:56:00 PST

A three-man band tuned up in the bar area while we waited for the Red, White and Bleu wine and cheese tasting to start tonight at Les Zygomates.The band's riffs and starts. The brick design detail at the bar. The weathered-by-heavy-traffic hardwood floor. The wine bottle displays stepping up the side walls. The floor-to-ceiling front windows looking out onto the Leather District. It's all of these details that make this wine bar and bistro on South Street a great place to be as the sun goes down ...

Winemakers go on wine tours...in France

Dirk — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:07:00 PST

I admit it; I have been avoiding this blog because I was travelling. I tried...really...but was unable to overcome the complexities of a French keyboard. Try one. They moved the letters and added all sorts of accents. (Just who needs a cedille anyway?!) These problems lead to the dreaded "bloggus interuptus." I have heard that it can take a while to really get going afterwards. France was great...the dollar wasn't. Internet cafes in Paris have computers ...

Style and Substance at BRIX on Broad, Boston

Cathy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:57:00 PST

When it comes to geography there are a few things to notice about the BRIX on Broad wine shop:? It's on Broad Street. Which means the Financial District. Which means deads-ville after 5 p.m. At least, it used to mean that. Now, with BRIX's "Alive After Five" wine tastings every week and their just-announced Saturday hours, there's good reason to go to the Financial District even if you really don't want anything to do with mutual funds.? In terms of the interior geography of BRIX, you won't find ...

A Local Wine, A Local Shop, and a Bit of Tingle at Cape Ann Liquors, Gloucester

Cathy — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:51:00 PST

Cape Ann Liquors on Bass Avenue in Gloucester is not the place to come if you're out looking for fancy wines. Fancy they are not, and neither is their inventory.But what they do have, that I fancy, is the best collection of local wines I have seen in a liquor store so far, including Rhode Island-based Greenvale Vineyards' Rosecliff Pinot Gris, the Greenvale Chardonnay, and the Skipping Stone white, a bottle of which I gladly took home with me.The Skipping Stone is a blend of Cayuga and Vidal Bla ...