Wednesday and day one of the 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference. Several pre-conference excursions were offered and I chose the Salem option. Our first stop was the Evergreen Aviation Museum – they decided (wisely!) that we should see more than wineries!! It is an impressive campus containing an aviation museum, space museum, IMAX theater, and water park. One could easily spend…

A second visit to Two Boroughs Larder on August 3 proved to be as good or better than my first experience. The Larder was happy to allow me to bring in a bottle of wine and I selected a bottle of the 2008 Newton Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon that was mentioned in my post about the Newton Wine Dinner at Carolina’s….

Slightly North of Broad (locally and fondly known as “SNOB”) is offering a new Chef’s Table Dinner on Sunday evenings.  There are two seatings, one at 5:30 p.m. and one at 8:00 p.m.  My daughter, Hilary, and I occupied two of the six seats at the chef’s table overlooking the kitchen and were joined by two couples who were visiting…

Meet + Eat is the tagline for a unique new restaurant in Charleston, Two Boroughs Larder.  Located at 186 Coming Street, the restaurant is made up of two connecting rooms with a distinctly rustic feel.  Menus are date stamped and change frequently, featuring the freshest of locally sourced fish, meats, and produce.  Josh and Heather Keeler are the proprietors; Josh is…

It’s summer and time for those lovely pink wines, dry rosés (not White Zinfandel!). The French consume more rosé than white wine and Americans have been catching on. Wine stores are stocking a wide variety to choose from, ranging from pale pink to deep rose in color. Rosés are fun to drink and perfect for summer because they go with a wide variety of foods…

Newton Vineyard and Carolina’s Restaurant teamed up to present a wonderful wine dinner on a recent Tuesday evening. Debbie Marlowe of The Wine Shop of Charleston coordinated the fine event. The 30 of us in attendance were greeted with Chandon’s Étoile Rose (Newton and Chandon are sister companies within the Moët Hennessy Group) and passed hors d’oeuvres.  Soon after, we were seated…

I just celebrated another birthday and made sure there were multiple opportunities to share some bubbly with friends and family.  The first bottle was 2007 Rouge de Noirs, a sparkling Pinot Noir by Schug, a well known Sonoma winery.  The wine is a beautiful deep rose color and raspberries are the dominant flavor.  It is wonderfully crisp and dry on the palate…

What do you think of when you hear the term claret?  I used to think of people sipping claret in the 17th and 18th centuries, knowing it was a red wine, but not much else.  Claret evolved from the French “Clairet”, the name of a dark rosé made in Bordeaux and exported until the 18th century.  Over time, the meaning…

Greetings.  Last weekend was a fun and food filled adventure in one of my favorite cities, Washington D.C.  My daughter, Hilary, and I made a return visit to Michel Richard’s Citronelle, the restaurant where we began the celebration of her 21st birthday 11 years ago.  We were seated at an upper level table with an excellent view of the diningroom…

Hello, friends and readers.  I apologize for my absence over the past weeks.  I caught a nasty virus and couldnt’ smell for 2 weeks, so there was no interesting wine tasting going on for me!  Then I went to Jamaica and that was all about rum. There have been some interesting articles of late.  (As an aside, I just don’t understand…