WINE AND FRIENDS

Dear friends, This story started at the 2025 American Wine Society Annual Conference in Chantilly, VA. I attended to obtain my Wine Jugde certification but the conference had much more to offer. I participated in very interesting morning and afternoon sessions and I flew around like a bee in the exhibitor’s hall getting to know the wines and the people behind them. It was a marvellous experience that I would recommend anybody who loves wine and can wisely control its inges

Dear friends, I am happy to provide you a new post with my review of Chairman's Selection wines presently at the store. I have focussed on affordable wines and, in fact, currently there are many with excellent quality / price ratio. I am not sure about the reason. Maybe the present imbalance between supply and demand is favoring low prices or maybe the PLCB is doing a wonderful job at getting us good wines at competitive prices. In any case this is welcome! I am starting

Dear friends, During my October 2024 - June 2025 stay in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid province, I had the opportunity to travel through Spain and visit interesting wine regions and wineries. To my delight, some of those trips were short because Madrid province has developed a diverse wine industry with a large assortment of wines. From small, traditional wineries, to small boutique ones, to incipient larger producers, using local and French grape varietals, the wines

Dear friends, I visited Bernabeleva with my brother Juancho and friend Jes ú s in December 2018 and created a post that you can find under Wine Trip Reports tab. This second visit, my brother-in-law Jerry and I focused on learning more about its "terroir". You will find in this post a series of videos capturing some of our improvised conversations with Juan D í ez Bulnes, the owner and founder. They were very interesting and informative and I plan to use some of them as ma

Malbec is a grape varietal native of France. In the past it was a major component of Bordeaux wines but it gave way to more Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot due to its susceptibility to frost and fungal infections. Cahors, East of Bordeaux, remained loyal to Malbec and became its home. See below the location of Cahors in Southwestern France: Cahors is a beautiful medieval town worth visiting. It i s located in a rural and quaint region and has roman and medieval monuments in

Dear friends, See below this new review of wines presently available in the Chairman's Selection section of the Pennsylvania state stores. Needless to say, if you have any comment or question send me an email. Wine tasting and rating has objective and subjective preference components and I love contrasting opinions. Cheers! Ricardo Llovet Clos Pegase 2022, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley This wine comes from Calistoga in the upper Napa Valley where Close Pegase is a highly r

Dear friends, Chairman's Selection is at present carrying two South Australian Shiraz wines from the same winery and vintage but different appellations. The wine specialist at the Centre Ave, Pittsburgh PA store featured them in one of their tastings and I thought they presented a wonderful opportunity to identify the influence of terroir. The following maps show the location of the appellations: As we can see, McLaren Vale is a coastal area while Barossa Valley is around 60

I hope you are wondering the reason for the post title.  Well, Granbazán produces great Albariño wines, for sure, and I have always enjoyed them.  I also love the design of their labels.  But the story goes the following way: My dear Galician uncle Moncho Taboada Soto had just passed away in late 1995.  Many of my relatives travelled from Madrid to Vilagarcía de Arousa for the wake but I was on business somewhere in Europe and could not make it.  A couple of months later, Sal

Juancho Llovet, from Europa Plus, and I visited Bodegas Martúe on November 15th, 2024 with the objective of learning about this winery that had been identified in a reputed Spanish newspaper as a “Vino de Pago” with an excellent quality / price ratio . The visit was arranged through Marta Rodriguez, Bodegas Martúe’s head of ecotourism, who was a pleasure to deal with.  Jorge Miranda, head of international sales, was our host and provided most of the information collected in t

Dear friends, See below this new review of wines presently available mostly in the Chairman's Selection section of the Pennsylvania state...