Join Dick Rosano for a Wine Tour of Piemonte and The Alba Truffle Festival!

This fall, author and wine expert Dick Rosano and Chef Stephen Sands will lead a small group of food and wine adventurerers on a tour through the Piemonte region of Italy.  Want to join them?  Here are the highlights of the 10-day boondoggle: Numerous degustazioni wine sampler lunches and cantina visits with local hosts under Dick’s [...]

Sartori Wines at Café Milano

Verona is best known for Juliet’s trist with Romeo, a youthful “indiscretion” that culminated in her fatal pact with a poisoned lover. Perhaps Romeo could have saved them both if he had sipped one of their hometown’s fabulous wines instead of that vial of poison. Andrea Sartori leads one of Verona’s great wine estates, a [...]

Rare Italian Reds

The label “rare Italian reds” could refer to the magnificent Tuscan wines from the late-1970s, or the 1980s masterpieces of Piedmontese winemakers like Angelo Gaja and the Ceretto family. Or it could refer to non-indigenous grapes like Cabernet and Merlot that Italian vintners have incorporated into their ever-growing portfolio of fine wines. “Rare” not because [...]

Sommelier Spencer Cruse of Drago Centro

  This week I interviewed Spencer Cruse, who is the relatively new sommelier at LA’s Drago Centro.  Spencer took the reigns from Michael Shearin, who continues to help Spencer with sourcing in his new capacity as an importer/distributor.  The first thing I noticed while perusing the Drago’s menus was the difference in prices between this year and [...]

Standout Reds from Empson

Recently, we reviewed a bevy of outstanding white wines from Italy that Empson imports to the American market. That was a statement about the quality in whites coming from a country known for its red wines. As good as the whites are – and Empson leads the U.S. import market in proving how good Italian [...]

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