Getting “Au Naturel” with Damien and Didier Richou ‘Les D en Bulles’ Méthode Ancestrale #Winophiles

This month the French Winophiles are taking a virtual summer escape to the Loire Valley. Jill of L’Occasion with be hosting the event ( (Check out her invitation post here.) About the Loire Valley The Loire Valley, two hours southwest of Paris is known as “the Garden of France” due its abundance of fertile farmland that…

Wine of the Week; 2012 Sandlands Chenin Blanc

Every Thursday I feature a wine I particularly enjoy, whether it’s something new and different, is a great value, or from a producer worth checking out.  This week’s wine the 2012 Sandlands Chenin Blanc is all of the above. From The Winery Sandlands is the personal project of Tegan and Olivia Passalacqua. The line-up encompasses the forgotten…

Top 20 Sparkling Wines Under $20!

Over the past couple of years I’ve made it a point to blog about sparkling wines. For a time I blogged about a different sparkling wine on a weekly basis (At one point I tried 30 different sparkling wines over a 30 week period!).  Though I’ve gotten away from it in recent months, it’s not…

Which Wines Go Best With Oysters?

Well it turns out there’s a competition for that!  The most recent edition was the 18th Annual 2012 Pacific Coast Oyster Competition.  Are you kidding me?  They’ve done this 17 times before this year and I just found out?!;-) Here’s what the website says… Traditionally, restaurateurs have looked to France for wines like Muscadet and…

T.G.I.F. Champagne and the like – 2008 Antech “Cuvée Eugénie” Crémant de Limoux

This week’s virtual trip around the world of sparklers takes me back to France, specifically the Languedoc-Roussillon region that is renowned for great quality-price ration (“QPR”) wines.  I must confess that, so far, I’ve only enjoyed Crémants (as sparkling wines produced in France, but outside of Champagne are known) from the region. The Crémant de…

And the winner is…

For the September bi-monthly meeting of the Pacific Point Wine Tasting Club, we blind tasted 10 sparkling wines. It was a fun evening filled with lots of sparkling wine, food, and we learned a thing or two about sparkling wine in the process! The sparkling wines were geographically diverse. While half of the wines were…