Hosting a dinner party or social gathering with food and wine can be daunting if you have not done it before. Depending on what is being paired, it is important to consider the components of both—what foods are being served, and what beverages you wish to pair or highlight. The other part to consider is which do you want to showcase, the beverage (in this case, wine) or the food(s). To add more to your decision making, you could also opt to do both, along the course of your agenda, with some pairings to highlight the wine, some showcasing the food and others highlighting the way each compliments each other.

In the most broad sense, a winery’s location determines the wine laws it may choose to follow. The question basically comes down to how a winery label their wines. Or how do they choose to label their wines? Why is this so important? A label can express a level of quality or the basic amount of production element done to that wine to achieve that level of quality. If done well, the customer can have a legitimate amount of confidence in what is purchased, be it a high-end bottle or an every day table wine. The level of quality expressed, like many other parts of economics, will translate to the amount of money a customer would be willing to pay.

There are many ways in which to broaden your knowledge of wine, and several avenues to take you there. While it is our sincerest hope that you are enjoying and getting enriched by our blog, there are many other blogs, and podcasts, that you may want to consider. There are probably hundreds, if not more, articles, collections, and editorials on wines, wineries, and locations to choose from. However, weeding through all of them may be a bit daunting. Blogs and/or podcasts can often be more streamlined, and more of an effortless way to gain knowledge about a certain subject, and you may find one you wish to follow on a regular basis to stay in touch with the current state of the wine world.

This is the big week football lovers, commercial fans and foodies have been waiting for! Whether or not football is the real reason for watching the Super Bowl, it usually instigates a celebration of good party food and drink. Due to the ever-popular Clydesdales, singing frogs, and lovable dogs, the featured drink always seems to center around beer, even though the NFL is now promoting Barefoot Wine as the “Wine of the NFL.” Let us be honest, there could have been a better choice … and while that might be your choice to have at parties where the audience is unknown, now is the chance to sway your audience toward “other” wine, and show them that yes, it is possible to have wine AND football food!