One of the characteristic things about cruises is the “sea days”. These are the days when the ship does not put into a port. Sometimes you are sailing near the coast and the scenery can attract attention, if not, looking at the sea quickly loses its attraction. So the ship’s entertainment staff provide a range of divertissements to keep the customers satisfied. Quizzes are popular: Charades , Pictionary , Tribond , Name That Tune and, probably favourite, the Trivia Quiz .

My men’s wine group “The League of Gentle Men” decided to have a dinner to celebrate Bastille Day. We could not do it on July 14th so we celebrated to the 13 th . It was held at Nice-Martin on the upper West Side. The food was excellent and went well with the wine. The theme of course would be French. For the first time we invited women. Only one of them showed up stayed for the champagne, and left. The wines  We started as we always do with Krug.

July 26th, 2009JasonLeave a commentGo to comments Ferdinand Magellan, who “discovered” the Philippines, was also the first European to sight Chilean territory when he crossed the Strait of Magellan in 1520, during his global circumnavigation voyage. Both countries fought a protracted battle for independence from Spain in the 1800’s and both groaned under a dictatorship in the 70’s.

Contrary to popular belief, the French do not suck!  Why, you ask?  First of all, and probably for the most underappreciated reason, is that they make damn good pastries. And they have them for breakfast.  And you can all just scream in complete envy when you picture yours truly biting down into a crispy, buttery, flaky, and steaming hot croissant…yum.  The hotel we stayed at in Paris gave delicious free croissants and bread for breakfast, and it was heavenly.  I honestly forgot much of the details of my trip, probably due to my consciousness suppressing them in the deep crevasses of my mind because of the trauma of it all.

The nose shows hints of green pepper, black fruit and leather. Across the palate there are notes of mint, currant, mineral and spice. Th e tannins are rustic and long lasting on the finish. The grapes for this wine are sourced from the Trefethen estate in the Oak Knoll District of the Napa Valley. This wine drinks more like a Left Bank Bordeaux than a Napa Valley floor Cabernet Sauvignon. Good but not great, and expensive ($100).

Here’s a round-up of the food & drink articles in Toronto’s papers today… Toronto Star : Corey Mintz praises the third location of the casual Italian mini-chain Mercatto , declaring their pizzas to be “as good as anything at Pizzeria Libretto “. Gord Stimmell is disappointed by most of the wines in the southern Italy spotlight section of today’s Vintages release, but finds some gems from elsewhere . Shauna Rempel makes a refreshing spiked iced tea using Alizé Red Passion liqueur.

I’m going to have some fun with this. People often make a big deal about transitions because of the change involved. Transition equals change, right? Transition can be change over time, though, and I think that’s what normally happens. Sure, sometimes change hits us in the head like a brick mortar (does such a thing exist?), but more often than not, transition happens over time. I have a wine cellar. We buy French Bordeaux futures, then wait for about a year to actually get them and then stick them on their side in the cellar for a few more years before actually drinking them.

Chicken Natale. Photo by Kevin Hunter Marple. Recently I dined at Café on the Green in the Four Seasons Las Colinas. The dining room is lovely and Master Sommelier James Tidwell’s wine list is fun and affordable. It’s a hotel and we were there on a weekday night so most of the diners were out-of-towners. Chef Katie Natale’s menu is short but varied—New American-ish dishes such as crab cakes, Texas quail, and braised veal cheek. As much as I was tempted to try the veal, I decided to go with what I thought most travelers would pick—Chicken Natale.

The family-run Fladgate Partnership , who Port brands include Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft, is opening a new wine-based hotel at the end of the year in Gaia, across the Douro River from Porto. The Yeatman hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia, is located on the steep terraced slopes of the town, where port wine has been stored and aged for centuries. The hotel will have 12 suites and 70 bedrooms, each with a terrace and private garden that offer visitors stunning views of the river and the city of Porto.

[Photos (clockwise from top left): Courtesy of Kreutz Creek Vineyards; by R. Kennedy for GPTMC; by J. Smith for GPTMC; and by M. Kennedy for GPTMC]” width=”500″ height=”333″ /> Where music flows like wine. [Photos (from top left): Courtesy of Kreutz Creek Vineyards; by R. Kennedy; by J. Smith; and by M. Kennedy.) You uwishunu readers are probably seasoned veterans of Philadelphia’s live music venues, like the Trocadero, Ortlieb’s and the TLA. All great venues, sure, but did you ever consider Chaddsford Winery ? That’s right.

The Australian share market may have taken a hammering over the last 18 months, but Australian fine wine on the secondary wine investmen t market has enjoyed a remarkable period of price growth. Langton’s Classified Australian Wine Index, a key secondary wine market indicator, shows that over the last 2 years Australian fine wine values have increased by almost 64 per cent whereas the stock market has fallen by about 39 per cent.

Chris Snow in Adelaide – The late Dr Max Lake’s cellar is being auctioned by fine wine auctioneers Langtons. Lake, regarded as the ‘father’ of Australia’s boutique winery industry, died in Sydney on April 14, aged 84. A hand surgeon, Lake founded Lake’s Folly in the Hunter Valley in 1963 on land bought from Tyrrell’s Vineyards, leading a boom in boutique wineries now estimated to total 1300 of Australia’s 2,500 wineries.

Adam Lechmere – Chateau de Malle in Sauternes is for sale, decanter.com can reveal – for the astonishing price of €68m. The chateau appeared anonymously in UK broadsheet the Financial Times last Saturday, advertised by a small estate agency Maxwell Storrie Baynes. The advert caused a good deal of speculation, simply announcing ‘World class Bordeaux vineyard’, one that is ‘consistently in the top 3 in its class’ and ‘praised by Robert Parker’.

You know you are very close to heaven when it is a blue sky and sun day in winter in the Boland. On this gorgeous day, I met a most delightful young man. Driving towards Klapmuts on the Simondium Road, I arrived at Noble Hill. From the moment I got out of my car, I could feel the relaxing atmosphere. The wooden climbing frame advertised the fact that this is a child friendly estate. Wooden tables and chairs dotted the lawn under beautiful trees and there wasn’t a ripple on the surface of the dam stocked with Wide Mouth Bass.

The toast of Khao Yai By LEKHA J SHANKAR SPECIAL TO THE NATION Published on July 18, 2009 Tasty tours of three excellent Nakhon Ratchasima wineries are set for next week and again in September For someone who has revelled in intoxicating wine tours around the world, finding an outstanding weekend wine odyssey just two hours from Bangkok is an unexpected delight. Boasting three of the country’s top wineries – Granmonte, PB Valley and Village Farm – Khao Yai in Nakhon Ratchasima might well be described as “Thailand’s Bordeaux”.