DOW’s Late Bottle Vintage (LBV) Porto 2001

Gone are the days of top hat wearing robber barons and steel tycoons sipping port and lamenting the rise of organized labor.  Despite its newfound popularity, Port is still synonomous with the long forgotten gilded age and the occasional 55-year old ex-frat bag found in cigar bars. This presents many problems and important questions for [...]

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2007 Renato Ratti Dolcetto d’Alba Colombe

First off, I’ve always liked dolcetto. A lot.  It’s not readily available at every corner grocer, giving it a certain sense of uniqueness, and its usually priced really fairly without the big name varietal markup.  Plus, its undeniably Italian! The name dolcetto always reminds me of dessert and the root word dolce does mean “sweet”.  Indeed,  [...]

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Olivar

Last weekend Isabell and I made a trip up to Seattle to see some of our friends. On Sunday night we had a rendezvous of the powers that be for Tavola Rosso for a dinner at Olivar, a Spanish-French fusion restaurant on Capitol Hill. This particular dinner was significant, as it was a mini-celebration of [...]

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Fall favorites for a special occasion

Last weekend, I hosted a baby shower for a close friend. What a great excuse to get friends together, celebrate the upcoming arrival of her little one and enjoy some tasty fall favorites. I went back and forth about whether to do serve brunch or lunch, and I decided to go with the latter. Below [...]

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Auction of Washington Wines

Last week I was fortunate to volunteer with the Washington Wine Ambassadors at the Auction of Washington Wines Picnic with the Winemakers.  This was my first event as a volunteer wine pourer, and I found it interesting, hot, and worth my time (beyond the great cause). Having attended the picnic before as a guest, it [...]

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