We look forward to the Spirited Gourmet’s (Winchester, MA) Spring Grand Tasting with great anticipation. It’s our first good chance to discover wines that we can coronate as our summer selections. You need good wines for barbeque, desserts, and for just plain social sipping on a lazy sunny day. This year the Spirited Gourmet featured another bumper crop of good summer selections.  Below is our review of the four tasting stations and the high points. But first…cut to the chase. What to B... Read Full Story

It’s always fun to walk into an unfamiliar wine shop and find something more than the usual suspects.  Our latest journey took us down Route 6A in Cape Cod to the Dennis Public Market. The DPM is an icon in Dennis Village, known for fresh produce, gourmet meats and a friendly approach to doing business.  Our visit revealed that all these things were true. But the Yelp-ers and other reviewers seem to have bypassed the wine department (no one writes about it!).  Specializing in l... Read Full Story

VinoDuo has joined the Open Wine Consortium, kind of a Facebook for the wine industry and wine lovers.  We've started a fun discussion and thought our VinoDuo fans (all 2 of you!) might want to join in.  Titled "If you were a wine, what would you be?", it's based on those ridiculous Facebook fads going around, like "Take this test to see what historical figure you'd be."  But of course our discussion doesn't require a test...just think about ... Read Full Story

Work and play took VinoDuo on the road in February and March, with week-long stops in Puerto Rico (vacation) and Half Moon Bay, CA (work for Lisa, a bit of both for Gary.)  While Puerto Rico is better known for its rum, we managed to find a few wine selections we're happy to recommend (and a few that we hope to never taste again!)  California is, of course, wine central. Our stay at The Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay presented an overflow of pricey but excellent tastes. We'll st... Read Full Story

On a bone-cold day in January we made our annual pilgrimage to the Boston Wine Expo to soak up the bounty of warmer climates. With hundreds of producers and thousands of wines to sample, you have to pick your targets carefully. Spend too much time at the Italian pavilion and you might be snockered before checking out Spain or New Zealand.  Following our successful “divide and conquer” strategy, Gary and Lisa split up during the “for the trade” hours of 11 am – 1 pm and headed to the prod... Read Full Story

The 2003 French vintage will long be remembered for the killing August heat wave and a difficult early harvest. Winemakers were certainly put to the test that year and the results have been uneven at best. At the Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival late last year, however, we were fortunate to discover one stellar 2003 production-- Chateau Lagrange Saint Julien 2003, a marvelous blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot from the Languedoc region in the south of France.  I... Read Full Story

Like the rest of America, we couldn’t say goodbye to 2008 fast enough. Personally and professionally, VinoDuo had a tough year. So for New Year’s Eve, we decided to hunker down and welcome 2009 with classic comfort food—take-out Chinese, ice cream, and a whole lot of bubbly. Like many wine-lovers on a budget, we skipped Champagne and chose value-priced sparkling wines from Spain (Cava) and Italy (Prosecco.) From the spicy Hunan Shrimp and heavenly mango-laden Ma La Chicken to the swoon-induci... Read Full Story

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and wondered how you would find that knockout wine you just had with dinner but had never heard of?  You go to your local wine shop, and they don’t even have the label, much less, the wine you’re looking for.  Well, during our gallivanting through the Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival (ok, not quite a restaurant) Gary was invited into the booth of the Wilson Daniels wine distributors, where he was introduced to a number of wonderful, unknown ... Read Full Story

Gary and Lisa are old enough to remember when hotel dining in Boston meant Kon Tiki Ports at the Sheraton, the Last Hurrah at the Parker House, and Boodles at the Hilton.  While the latter two still soldier on catering to tourists and a smattering of locals, the dining scene at area hotels has morphed, Manhattan-like, into a foodies’ paradise. From Mooo at XV Beacon and Great Bay at the Commonwealth to Meritage at the Boston Harbor, some of Boston’s top restaurants are found at the city’... Read Full Story

Mendoza is Argentina's largest and most successful wine region, producing upwards of 70% of the country's total output. And when wine lovers think Mendoza, they think Malbec. We've swooned over some terrific Mendoza Malbecs in recent years, including Kaiken Reserve 2005, Alessandro Speri, Prodigo 2004, the Catena 2005 and its second label 'brother', the Alamos 2003. But just as New Zealand is no longer a one-trick Sauvignon Blanc pony, adding delicious Pinot Noir to its re... Read Full Story