Winter Whites

You might think of white wine exclusively for drinking on a sunny porch during the summer, but white wines also can be full bodied and pair well with heartier winter dishes. 


If you aren't a fan of white wine, Southern Rhone whites will change your mind.

England's King of Cheeses

Stilton (Stihl-tn), a semi-soft, cow's milk blue cheese, was oddly enough, not originally made in Stilton. 

Stilton is named for the place that made it famous, and Stilton is, along with Roquefort and Gorgonzola, one of the world's most famous blue cheeses.

Barleywine - is it wine or is it beer?

A cold, dark winter evening is the perfect time to hunker down with a glass of barleywine, a dark, strong, malty ale originating in England.

It's dark, complex, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes fruity, and always very alcoholic.  

And no, it is definitely not wine.

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve is fast approaching, and I'm sure that more than a few of you will be opening a bottle of champagne to ring in the new year. Champagne will get a full blog post in the future, but for now, the issue at hand is getting the bubbly out of the bottle and into your glass.

Beaujolais for Turkey Day

Its coming up on Thanksgiving here in sunny Seattle, and every place that sells wine is trying to sell you the perfect wine to pair with your Thanksgiving turkey.
 
There are many fantastic choices and popular favorites, and it seems to me that the wine that seems to cause the most confusion is Beaujolais (BOH-zho-lay). 

Beaujolais? Beaujolais Nouveau? Aren't they the same? Kinda? Sorta? 

Well, no, not really.

Manchego: A Spanish Classic

The story of Don Quixote takes place in La Mancha, a hot, arid plain in south central Spain. The novel mentions cheese 13 times, and the cheese on Don Quixote's mind was Manchego (Mon-CHAY-goh), one of Spain's iconic cheeses.

Brown Ale for Thanksgiving

I'm back to blogging after taking some time off to prepare for the Craft Beer Institute's Cicerone certification exam - just in time to talk about beer to serve with Thanksgiving dinner.

I know what you're thinking: Thanksgiving is a special celebration so you should pull out the wine, right? 

Don't think that you have to, because there is historical precedent for serving beer instead. Do you think that the Pilgrims ran down to the corner store for a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau? No, they did not. They drank the beer that they had brewed. 

Honor the Pilgrims by serving beer!

There are plenty of great beer choices for Thanksgiving dinner, but I'm going to suggest something that isn't terribly sexy, esoteric, or beer-geeky: Brown Ale.