Due Santi Rosso is the brainchild of Dr. Peter Hatlie, my dear friend, and director of the UD Rome Campus. Peter has nurtured the vines on campus like he coaches the minds of his students. The result is the 2015 DUE SANTI ROSSO, a wine of great typicity, perfect backbone, and a beautiful bouquet (I only use that term when it really is beautiful). I could not be happier with the first wine in our new portfolio.
The Blue Rock Chronicles is my year-long journey, in residence, with Blue Rock Vineyard in Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley. Recently, I had the great privilege of sitting in, and joining, the blending of Blue Rock’s most popular wine, Baby Blue. My favorite part of being a wine merchant, for many years, was the opportunity to taste so many finished wines upon their releases. Now, after the many thousands of prêt à boire products I have tried, for which I believed many could have been better with my professional input, I was getting my chance to put my money where my mouth is.
The Housewrighter has embedded with Blue Rock Vineyard for a 1 year exploration of an estate, its winery, and the people who manage them. Kenny Kahn is the magnanimous owner of Blue Rock, in the Alexander Valley. This, recently fashionable, enclave of excellent wine is showing up all over the press lately. Blue Rock is one of the reasons it is. The wines are excellent, but I am not here to write about wine flavors, organoleptic compounds, or scores from critics. I am here to talk about people, to share my observations living at the winery once a month, and […]
Today, the wonderful Your Life is A Trip experiential travel site, posted my second piece for them, Finding Mario Bollag about my first visit to the beautiful Terralsole winery in Montalcino, Italy. This piece, while short, tells the story of how Juliet and I made our way from Rome airport to the brilliance of Tuscany in a 5 and a half hour adventure. In addition, we have a few slots remaining on our iPhone Journey to Puglia this October. I would love for some of my readers to join me in this amazing experience in Italy. The iPhone and Puglia […]
What a wonderful and sometimes intense set of responses from my previous post – The Italy Rules. I want to take a little time today to expand and expound on some of my thoughts and provide further insight into traveling in Italy. 1. Italy Guides – Here is my short list of who I would travel with and why in Italy. The Rome Digest – This new and wonderful consortium of talented Rome guides includes my dear friend Katie Parla, who is my champion of all things Roman (pork, gelato, beer, wine, art, history, and life) If you are going […]
One of my favorite icons on earth. (copyright The Blissful Adventurer) Here is The Blissful Adventurer 2012 Year in Review Haiku. Haiku was one of my most successful creative expressions here in the blog world in 2012 I want to share some of the best of the best with you all today for my final blog of 2012; easily the most successful year I have a had as a storyteller.
Friuli Friday Photos Finale is my final Friday blog of 2012. These shots are from an extraordinary spring adventure in Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and one from the Veneto just next door. We are in Northeast Italy here, in a land still seeking an identity after changing hands frequently in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I never would have thought I would have eaten the best sauerkraut of my life in Italy, and I did. Tall people, Fascist art, pork in a dozen ways on one plate, my kind of weirdness shared with friends. Nicolas Emery, the famous Rubicon explorer, his fiancée Giulia […]
The Most Influential Blogs of 2012 is my tribute to some of the finest work on the web done by caring curators of quality and passion. These individuals and their work gives me cause to pause on my birthday today to celebrate along with them because of what their influence means to my work. For those of you looking to find truth in advertising, look no further than these fantastic sites.
Hipstamatic Haiku Sunday is back and bolder than before. Hipstamatic iPhone images post-processed, imbued with magical lyrics and shared in a stream of consciousness format to entertain, prod, and provoke. Enjoy the countdown to the holidays.
iPhone 5 Fun Photo Friday besides being a lovely title replete with alliteration is my first foray into the natural world with my new iPhone 5. Since studying under Sam Krisch (one of the leading iPhone photo artists in the world) for a brief period I feel my universe has opened and I am now capable of creating images that range from the ethereal to the theatrical. This is how my mind works, this is how I see things in the light. All the world is truly the stage and I, merely a player with a piece of technology that finally render […]
