Ok, jetlag is done, culture shock is mitigated, and my life is starting to get back to its crazy usual self. I’ve inoculated my system with some fresh Iberian wines and assorted tapas. So what happened in Minnesota you may ask? Well a lot. One wedding, one 60th birthday party and at least 4 wine [...]

Editor’s Note: If you remember, a little while back, Ryan reviewed the book “Valencia, Land of Wine“, written by Joan C. Martin and translated and edited by John Maher. While, in Valencia, we asked John how he felt about writing the occasional piece for us on Valancian wine, being our resident expert and all. And [...]

I remember being in high school and seeing Carlin’s Jammin in New York at a friend’s, girlfriend’s house. He was making the analogy that the earth created humans so that it could have plastic; and it was in that moment when I realized that through laughter you can also make a strong statement, while making [...]

Over the past six months, I’ve been spending the majority of my Friday nights with a “new” friend of mine who is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. Tall, active and practical in mind, she values a night nibbling on a macrobiotic dinner followed by a short yoga session, well above a dinner spent at an exceptional [...]

When we published our Rioja report on Monday, we failed to include one key element - grapes! You know those small, round, juicy little fruits that you loved to pop in your mouth as a kid, one by one, or could even be used as killer ammunition against your annoying siblings? Uh-huh, don’t sit there [...]

Whoo hooo! We did it! We’ve finally released our best newsletter to date, or so we humbly believe. Having started this adventure last November with a full report on Port wines, followed by a second newsletter on Spanish Cava wines, we are ecstatic to announce our third newsletter on La Rioja wines. After 3 weeks [...]

Now that our Rioja is coming to a close, with only a few remaining articles in queue to be published, it’s time to give you the skinny on whether or not it’s worth your time to pick up the all knowing Spanish wine expert, John Radford’s, book on La Rioja. Published in 2004 by [...]

If it wasn’t for the title of this post, I trust that you’d most likely look at the word “patxaran” and wonder if it wasn’t the name of a pharmaceutical drug or a race of aliens on Star Trek. Sounding the letters out one by one, you suddenly find your tongue confused, unable to maneuver [...]

This is just a just a quick collection of newsworthy facts and figures to send you into the weekend feeling full of fortuitous factoids.
Catavino’s La Rioja Newsletter
After two quasi full months of tasting only La Rioja wine, while conveniently forgetting that one week dedicated to Portuguese wine, we will be finished by the end [...]

I’ll be the first to admit that I can only take so much wine while on a business trip. After awhile, my eyes glaze over and I feel an intense craving to either down a gin and tonic, or at the very least, stay as far as humanly possible from a fermentation tank. And god [...]

La Rioja is a fun place to eat. Any place where wine is so fundamental to a location’s identity will result in a culture of food that accompany their wine. And although, I believe that a food culture is prevalent worldwide, ranging from spicy to bland and rich to light; but if I had to [...]

Editor’s note: This story is from 3 years ago when I first went to Rioja. Back then Catavino was not known, and I only had a small family site I was maintaining. Money was scarce, hell it still is! But this became one of my favorite stories, and since it took place in Rioja and [...]

Editor’s Note: This is our last, and one of our most controversial, posts on the difference between modern versus traditional wines of Rioja. Our intention has been to share a variety of perspectives beyond our own as to what Rioja winemakers perceive when they use the terms traditional and modern Rioja wine. Hopefully, you feel [...]

Living in Europe, you are surrounded by history in a technologically evolving setting. If I leave my house right now, I can step into a church dating back to the 9th century in just under fifteen minutes; but I can also walk out of the church and into the mobile telephone shop, where I can [...]

When will I learn?! When will I put my foot down and say, “No honey, I am not a human guinea pig. I will not eat, nor drink something just because the fine people of La Rioja like it. And yes, I do love you, and I do appreciate your fine moral standards to try [...]