Pursuing Pinot has been experiencing creative shut down during the pandemic. However, I have encountered two new wineries that I want to share with you. My daughter, Hilary, and I ventured to Santa Barbara County in June to visit several of our favorite wineries and one new to us, Andrew Murray Vineyards. Lots of new rules were in place such…

Melbourne, Australia Vue de Monde came highly recommended by co-workers of my daughter, Hilary, and it didn’t take much discussion for us to decide that we wanted to try it.  The restaurant has received critical acclaim for over twenty years.  In 2011, Vue moved to the 55th floor of the Rialto building, providing panoramic views of the city.  Upon arrival,…

A Marathon Chardonnay Tasting and a Cooking Class Another absolutely packed day awaited us.  We were collected early by our fabulous tour guide and driver, Brad, owner of Vine Venture Tours, and taken to the Agrestic Grocer for breakfast. The Agrestic Grocer is famous for its delicious coffees and features a beautiful retail store along with the restaurant – how…

The Wine Media Conference offers several pre- and post-conference excursions. These are always special experiences because of the limited number of attendees. I chose the excursion to Orange and our group consisted of just nine people.  The organizers had originally intended to fly us to Orange on a local carrier, but with such a small number of travelers, they chartered…

                  Thursday was a travel day as we made our way from Blenheim, back to Auckland, and then on to Sydney.  After a two and a half hour drive (no, we didn’t drive – hired a car!), we arrived at the Hunter Valley Crowne Plaza, location for the 2019 Wine Media Conference. …

We awoke on our second morning in New Zealand to a chorus of beautiful bird songs and chicken clucks. After coffee and breakfast, we got ready for the day’s adventures. My friend, Amy (wine buyer at Mission Wines) was able to arrange a private tour and tasting for us at Whitehaven. We had seen signs for Whitehaven on the way back…

              While in New Zealand, Hilary and I decided not to rent a car, partly because we didn’t think we would really need one and partly because we weren’t too keen on attempting to drive on the right side of the car and on the left side of the road!  However, once in Marlborough,…

It’s difficult to believe that our just completed trip to New Zealand and Australia was in the planning process for nearly one year. The Wine Media Conference (formerly the Wine Blogger’s Conference) scheduled its first conference outside of North America in the Hunter Valley of Australia.  The conference was set for October 2019 and I made our conference reservations on…

Amy Luftig Viste and Jasper Dickson were good friends who shared a passion for wine.  Jasper worked for the highly regarded retailer, Silver Lake Wines, and Amy was avidly pursuing knowledge through classes about wine.  Amy realized she was more interested in the production end of wine rather than service, such as becoming a sommelier.  Jasper moved closer to his…

The July 2019 issue of Food and Wine features an entertaining and informative article by Ray Isle.  The article offers seven tips that help customers cope with the wine list at restaurants.  Wine lists can have fewer than 300 wines or more than 3,000 and prices may range from under fifty dollars to thousands of dollars.  How to choose?  The…