Last month, when my parents were in town visiting, I took them on one of my favorite local winery tours, the Manor House Museum Tour of José Maria da Fonseca. Easy to find on their website, this legendary Portuguese winery offers daily tours of the founder’s original estate and winery located in the town of [...]

Today marks the start of the American Wine Blogger Conference. Joel Vincent, the unstoppable force behind the 2000+ member Open Wine Consortium, has taken it upon himself to create a 3 day Wine Blogger Conference to gather retailers, wineries, tradesman and wine bloggers alike to discuss the current issues surrounding the world of wine blogging. [...]

Prior to my arrival on the Peninsula, my experience with wild mushrooms were both infrequent and rather tame. Having lived in Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado and Minnesota, my knowledge of mushrooms solely consisted of cute little button white mushrooms bought in the grocery store that had a slightly sweet flavor eaten raw, and when cooked, [...]

On a trip to London last week, I tried to get a feel for how consumers might see sherry. Just ordinary consumers, not the sorts who buy wines from expensive West End merchants. Of course, this exercise was totally unscientific. In between errands and meetings, I dropped into as many shops as I could to get an idea of what a [...]

This past week, after visiting a new client in Palafrugell, we spent an incredible night in a sleepy seaside pueblo called Llafranc, approximately 135 km northeast of Barcelona. It was a chance for us to get away for a night as a couple, far from tweets, status updates and cellphones!
This coastal section of Catalunya is [...]

Continued from Part 1 on Darian Delights
But what did this family drink? On offer was the internationally exported Tsingtao beer from another famed coastal city, Qingdao. The spelling ‘Tsingtao’ is from the Wades-Giles system of representing the sounds of Chinese characters (now defunct); but some Chinese brands/institutions like to state their age by using the [...]

First off, allow us to congratulate Lenn Thompson of Lenndevours for the 50th Anniversary of Wine Blog Wednesday, and to Russ Beebe of Winehiker for choosing such an appropriate theme for WBW #50: wine you’d go hiking with
And oh how we wish we were hiking right at this very minute. To be up [...]

Editor’s Note: After reading the title of this post, you may be pondering why Catavino has an article on North-East Chinese cuisine, which is a very good question. Edward Ragg, our Chinese correspondent, has been sharing his experiences living in Beijing as a wine consultant, which have included very detailed and descriptive articles on the [...]

In recent weeks, I have visited the Emilio Hidalgo bodega twice, and since their wines are so good, a post has become just about unavoidable. This is a small, truly independent, family-owned bodega. It was started by the Hidalgo family in the mid 1800s and is run by decedents of the founders brothers Fernando and [...]

Throughout my time living in this deliciously diverse food and wine country, I’ve come to realize that the Portuguese have developed themselves as artisans in specific food and wine crafts. Port may be the most famous, but what is surprising to most people who have never been here is Portugal’s long tradition in pastry making, [...]

If you’ve stayed with Catavino for long enough, it’s inevitable that you’ve heard us debate over the exact number of indigenous grapes in Iberia, and the fact that none of us are certain how many there are.  By some accounts there are approximately 400, and by other accounts, the number soars to over 1,000. This [...]

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours gave us the skinny on a new wine shop in Barcelona called, Neyras Vins. Located on Calle Laietana, a short jaunt from the famous Barcelona Cathedral, it is a cozy and comfortable space that welcomes both tourists and residents alike.
It’s owner, Antonio Gomez Neyra, is also the [...]

Feel the chill in the air, the earthy aromas of dried leaves and wet soil, the vibrant orange and red colors on the tip of the leaves like small dabs of paint radiating from the deep dark green background? Sigh, this is my favorite time of the year. I love to fill a thermos with [...]

This weekend, we built a wine rack. When we first moved to Terrassa almost 3 years ago, we were regularly lacking in wine as a result of less income, less samples and less travel. Consequently, we never had a formal wine rack. But when you change any one of these factors, you end up with [...]

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up on our sappy stories from the European Wine Blogger’s Conference that took place in La Rioja last weekend, allow me to catch you up. For three days, Robert McIntosh, Ryan and I gathered together several wine bloggers from around the world to meet and chat about…yup, [...]