I spent last weekend in smoky Los Angeles, visiting friends and enjoying a slice of its diverse dining and social scene as wild fires raged nearby, making the air heavy with smoke and tinting the sun an amber color. Friday night I dined at Michael Mina's new place, XIV, it being his 14th restaurant.

Here I am, fresh back from Italy and Slovenia, and what do I find but the news (thanks, CNN) that while I was sipping and spitting biodynamic Sauvignon Blanc in a humble little cellar in Slovenia's Karst region, the world leaders hanging about in...

Posted by 1 I can see now that to be a good journalist or wine writer, it is probably better not to be a winemaker at the same time. Well, especially not during harvest! So a month after my first blog contribution, let me tell you a bit on what is going on in the Côte-Rôtie.

Air travelers can enjoy fine dining at several restaurants in new terminal and can even bring wine bottles on board their flights

Posted by 1 November 5: The must has now been cold soaking for five days, and we've been regularly 1 and 1 as necessary to the fermenters. We're starting to see the readings more closely match our expected results. In the early stages, we often see smaller drops in Brix level (a measure of the sugar content) day-to-day than would have been expected from the amount of water added.

The 1 may be dead and we may never know all the reasons why. I still believe that Montelena's owner Jim Barrett wanted to sell the winery and was elated to have a buyer. Whether he changed his mind and wants to keep the property, or the economy changed the would-be buyer's mind and forced him to rethink his strategy, is unknown.

Posted by 1 Tomorrow we will be pressing out our final Pinot Noir fermentations, and the winemaking season will slow down—for now. Barrels that were filled with wine earlier on in the harvest period are now safely tucked away in the cellar.

Crowd-pleasing side dishes with white wines to match

Annual unveiling of Wine Spectator 's Top 10 drives additional surge to website, following new highs in first three quarters

I have been interested in the comments in my blog and the general buzz in the marketplace about our choice for the 1. It seems that some people are upset that the wine was not a 2005 Bordeaux, or the 1. In regard to the latter, I don't think it should have been named Wine of the Year--I'm not a huge fan, due to its slightly sweaty aromas--but obviously, I can better comment on Bordeaux.

The grapes are picked and the fermentation vats are full, so I used this moment of relative quiet for the vignerons to get an early read on them for the just completed 2008 harvest. Here's a look from both the Southern and Northern Rhône Valley.

Coming up this week is the one day of the year that specifically celebrates wine. It's not a national holiday, but you wouldn't know it if you happened to wander into a French bistro—in France or anywhere else in the world. Chalked up on the blackboard or spelled out in a banner festooning the entrance, a sign will proclaim "Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arivée!" Yes, all over the world, cases of 2008 French red wine one step from grape juice will make the long journey from the vineyards of southern Burgundy to a casual wine bar near you.

Annual charity event in Burgundy raises almost $3.9 million, a smaller take for the second straight year

Resveratrol appears to control enzymes that regulate fat metabolism in mice

Posted by 1 1: Since we had to allow the Mourvèdre to hang on the vine so long in order to get the fruit ripe, we ended up with higher sugar levels and lower acid levels than we'd optimally like. We therefore need to add some water and acid, or we'll end up with a finished wine that has too much alcohol and not enough structure.