Ever wonder what it is like to face a cooking team challenge?  The Wine Artist gives you the opportunity.  Ever wonder how to make team building fun?  The Wine Artist gives you the opportunity.  Need a recipe?  That’s a different Wine Artist day.



Team building is a necessity in…

Want to know what you can get from a label?  Well, here you can get a little background on wine labels, and the new, innovative, color coded, don’t need to know a bunch of arcane stuff, labels from Uproot Wines, my new favorite cheat sheet. 

How much do I really need to know to buy a good bottle of wine, which will have the flavors I want for my meal or…

In search of a pretty, low pressure, moderately priced, two-day escape from the crowds, lines, and auto frustration of everyday life in Los Angeles, I decided to head north, just a smidgen.  As I came down Hwy 101 to…

You could:

• bike the wine trails from town to town, among 400 villages, In the Moravian…

This year I have fallen, head over heels, for nuanced seducers and seductresses, earthily robust, sometimes slightly bubbly, always true to their origins, offering sensations of mountain and sea. Bracingly refreshing, sometimes rounded, feminine whites, powerful masculine reds:  I am speaking, of course, about today’s Greek wine, much of which is made…

There is a hot chocolate sipper that is pure decadence, an ahhhhhhh moment, a pound the table scene from When Harry Met Sally moment, savor pure chocolate at its best from a bean-to-bar chocolate shop. This is what I’m looking for, what I can’t forget. How did I get here? When I lived here 20 years ago I could navigate—but never happily. Who, I ask you, likes…

Yuma arrived on western maps in 1540 when native Indians led Spanish explorers coming up from the Gulf of California to its narrow, and relatively safe, crossing of the wild Colorado River.  In the 1800s, a rope ferry provided the only southern crossing into California, in the early 1900’s a bridge transferred early Model-T drivers to bounce along the wood…

East Wetlands

Yuma has invested in its history and ecology: when Arizona began to run out of money, Yuma took over park operations for the Prison and the Quartermaster depot. In the late 1990s Yuma began to reclaim the riverfront, and having planted over 250,000 trees and grasses, created a sanctuary for birds in the wetlands,…

After years of bypassing, I spent a week in Yuma—and discovered it is more than a crossing point, more than a refuge for snow birds, more than the America’s winter vegetable capital.  Yuma is history, even its prison is a window to a dustier, sweatier time.  Yuma is for foodies—whether you seek hot Chilies, Tex-Mex, sushi, or fine steak.  Yuma is an outdoor…

There is a Hilton Garden Inn on the riverfront at the crossroads, but for an authentic Yuma stay, try the Historic Coronado Motor Hotel, until very recently the oldest surviving Best Western in the United States. 

While they have left BW, Yvonne and John…

Yuma offers a variety of dining options, from the Garden Café near the City Hall, where you sit under the trees

serenaded by birdsong from the aviaries that line one side of the expansive outdoor restaurant, to Lutes Casino

(still run by the Lutes, filled with eclectic memorabilia and just plain…

When you think New Mexico, do you think skiing?  Georgia O’Keefe?  Hatch chilies?  Sunsets over red rock? John Wayne in the Rio Grande?  Or, perhaps, Tempranillo, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Riesling?  Visit a New Mexico Winery, and you just may forget Mr. Wayne, or at least, enjoy him with a…

Price does matter—for nuance. 

I have found many wines under $20 a bottle that I enjoy, but, when it comes to that WOW bottle, price, within reason, can pay off.  You really do, often, get what you pay for.  But, like many things—it only matters to a point—a wine that is just over the line may well satisfy more than…

Where can you get a varied, perfectly seasoned, five course rustic Italian meal with great wines and original cocktails in San Diego?  Pizzeria Mozza fits that bill.            

Pizzeria Mozza, sits on the western end of San Diego’s Headquarter’s, a rebirth of the historic San Diego Police Department…

On a rare, warm, spring-like winter night in a farmhouse in La Marche, Italy, it was also a bright sunny Sunday morning in California.  I was cutting up a chicken and potatoes in my PJ’s, while chef Jason Bartner, in La Marche, instructed me.  Jason told me to make sure my chicken was dry, and to use a towel—it won’t get stuck and it will wash.  All I had to do was roll out of…

Josh Cellars, by Joseph Carr, proves two things:  a winemaker doesn’t have to have a vineyard or a winery to produce excellent wines, and second labels can be intoxicatingly delicious values. 

Joseph Carr embraces his designation as “the negociant of Napa Valley”.  A “negociant” is a…

When I was 20, Jimmy Carter was President and I summered in Greece, sleeping on the beaches, drinking Retsina wine, gobbling Moussaka.  Retsina has been around for 2000 years, evolving from the practice of sealing wine casks

with pine resin.  It is, to…

#SipIdaho.

Move over potatoes, grapes are coming.  Idaho’s state slogan was “famous potatoes”, it has evolved to “great potatoes, tasty destinations”; undoubtedly, at least in part, due to the wonderful wines being produced along the Snake River Valley.  With a climate akin to the Columbia Valley in Washington State, and elevations similar to Spain’s Rioja region, Idaho produces primarily Bordeaux and Spanish varietals, with a…

Minutes from the City:  the Mountain Awaits

The mountains east of San Diego are oak and apple country, with century old apple trees.   

The country leading up to Julian, the former gold mining town from the 1860’s now home to apple orchards, wineries, gourmet dining, and shopping, is the dry rolling hills also seen in Paso…

“How much onion?”  “It says about half.”  “A half, a whole; onions are good for you.  Let’s use the whole onion.”  “It says a teaspoon of paprika.”  “This looks like about a teaspoon.”  And so it went.  One of us chopped, one sautéed, another mixed.  All the tools were there, all the ingredients ready to go.  And so we created.  The Wine Council made the perfect dishes to pair with some outstanding wines from the La Rochelle and Steven Kent Wineries.   Three hours, six dishes, six wines.  A…