You know that you can taste OPorto Wine in a restaurant, but did you know you can also be introduced to the knowledge of tasting it, like if you were in a winery? Imagine you are in a typical restaurant and staff is expert enough to advise you how to mix the flavors of food with different Oporto Wines, in several moments of your meal. This is not a dream; it is “Port Wine Restaurants”, the project of Associação Portuguesa de Hotelaria, Restauração e Turismo (APHORT) and Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (IVDP) that takes to some OPorto restaurants the title of OPorto Wine Ambassadors bringing to light the Port Wine tasting knowledge that was closed in the wineries for centuries. Restaurants involved will be recommended to... »View More
Fine wine often brings to mind images of French rolling hills and elegant dinners; however, Italy’s twenty regions bring to the pallet an array of fine wines for your dining pleasure. Italian wine making enjoys tradition rich in both modern and rustic methods, although much of the country’s wineries now employ scientific and technological tools to create quality wines. The country’s wines are made primarily from two types of grapes, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese. The Nebbiolo grapes are used in the northwester part of the country, creating the red wines Barolo and Barbaresco. The Sangiovese grapes create one of the better-known Italian wines, Chianti, and are native to the central Tuscany and Umbria regions. Italy’s wines... »View More
Many people spend tons of money on fine wines & often pay an weird amount of money for a single bottle of wine. Not lots of people would guess that it could be true for chocolates as well, not even gourmet chocolate. However, nowadays there’s chocolate manufacturers that specifically target the higher finish of the chocolate market. Three of these companies is Amadei. Their chocolates have brought the term terroir to the chocolate world. Amadei was established in the early 90s & is placed in Germany. Chocolate connoisseurs are going crazy over their gourmet chocolates. Terroir is most often associated with wines. It is used to describe the wine flavors & tones that are associated with a specific winegrowing region. Those... »View More
Camellia sinensis is the exotic sounding botanical name for a plant that many of us enjoy on a daily basis. It is the one plant that provides tealeaves. In fact, camellia sinensis gives us an astonishing three thousand different kinds of tea. Many of the teas derived from camellia sinensis are exotic and limited to small regions of the world. Like grapes that produce fine wines, the distinctive flavour and pedigree of these exotic teas is dependant on varying soil and weather conditions, plantation heights and geographic locations, as well as blending, processing and tea-making methods. The types of tea are broadly categorized under three general groups: green tea, black tea, and oolong tea. White and Puerh are less common categories of tea.... »View More
Many of us love wine, but lack the purse that allows for expensive, “fine” wines. For that matter, I have found that if I want to enjoy wine regularly (which I do), I can’t even afford $15 a bottle as that mounts up quickly in the old monthly budget. But fear not, budget oenophiles, good wines, even fine wines are available on a shoe string. Many people have already discovered the charms of Yellowtail and Two-buck Chuck (Charles Taylor) wines, to the point of these good wines being virtually ubiquitous on dinner tables everywhere. But did you know, or realize, that there are many, many quality varietals available through a host of other vineyards. Indeed, there are dozens of wines at half the price of Yellowtail, that produce... »View More