Category Archives: Wine Education

European Wine Wars: after Tocai, it is the time of Prosek… and Teran

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Stefano

The international press, Dr Vino and several other sources all recently reported that, as a result of Croatia’s imminent accession to the European Union at the end of a 10-year long process, Croatian wineries will be required to stop using the name “Prosek” to … Continue reading →

Posted in Wine, Wine Education, WiNews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Wine Review: Tenuta San Guido, Bolgheri Sassicaia 1995 DOC… and the History of “Super Tuscans”

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Stefano

Last month, a friend of mine invited me and a common friend to dinner at his place. At the time of the main course, he showed us what he had decided to share with us: not only was it a … Continue reading →

Posted in Red Wines, Wine, Wine Education, Wine Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

A Horizontal Tasting of Eight 2008 French Pinot Noirs

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Stefano

In January I was in Milan and I attended another wine tasting event organized by the local chapter of the Italian Sommelier Association: whenever I can, I participate in these events because they are very well organized and the association … Continue reading →

Posted in Red Wines, Wine, Wine Education, Wine Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

An Overview of the ISA Wine Pairing Criteria

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Stefano

As promised a while ago to Suzanne, the gracious author of food and cooking blog apuginthekitchen, in this post I will briefly go through the core foundations of food-wine pairing, providing an overview of the main criteria conceived and recommended … Continue reading →

Posted in Wine, Wine Education, Wine Pairings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

“Tasting Chateau Margaux 16 Ways”: An Excellent Post on Dr Vino’s Blog

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Stefano

Just a very quick note to give heads up to our wine enthusiast readers as to an in my view excellent post that got published yesterday in Tyler Colman’s wonderful wine blog, Dr Vino. In the post, Tyler gives a full account of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Wine, Wine Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

An Overview of the ISA Wine Tasting Protocol

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Stefano

One of the key building blocks of the sommelier certification course offered by the Italian Sommelier Association (ISA) is their standardized wine tasting protocol. This is a protocol that has been devised over the years by the association with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Wine, Wine Education, Wine Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Psychobubbles: Unraveling the Intricacies of Italian Spumante – Part IV

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Stefano

There we go, at last our series of posts on Italian spumante is coming to an end, with this last installment focusing on a few recommendations for quality Italian Method spumante wines. As we said on the second post of … Continue reading →

Posted in Sparkling Wines, White Wines, Wine, Wine Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Psychobubbles: Unraveling the Intricacies of Italian Spumante – Part III

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Stefano

After discussing the Classic Method production process and the Charmat-Martinotti Method production process in the previous two posts, our series of posts on Italian spumante is coming to an end: today, I will pass on a few recommendations of some … Continue reading →

Posted in Sparkling Wines, White Wines, Wine, Wine Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Psychobubbles: Unraveling the Intricacies of Italian Spumante – Part II

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Stefano

On our previous post we started our journey into the world of Italian spumante by covering the basics, very briefly touching upon Champagne, introducing the two main processes to make a natural sparkling wine, the Champenoise or Classic Method and … Continue reading →

Posted in Sparkling Wines, White Wines, Wine, Wine Education | Tagged , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Psychobubbles: Unraveling the Intricacies of Italian Spumante – Part I

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Stefano

With Thanksgiving well behind us now, it is not going to be long before the end of the year festivities are upon us and with those a tradition that is common to many to pop some kind of bubbly wine … Continue reading →

Posted in Sparkling Wines, White Wines, Wine, Wine Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments