Veuve Cliquot

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20 High-Low Late Summer Wines

We have about three weeks until Labor Day weekend, the end of summer. This is my favorite time of year (I love heat) for food and for wine. When the temperature rises I instinctively reach for an aromatic white or rosé. Of all the wines I’ve been drinking this summer, my favorites fall into two distinct price categories: $15 or less, or over $20. Many of my go to wines come from Trader Joe’s and are less than $10.

That got me thinking about fashion, and how the most stylish dressers put together outfits that are high-low combinations. For example, you pair a H&M top at $14.99 with Tory Burch pants that cost $295 and a pair of Michael Michael Kors shoes (his 2nd label, also called a diffusion line) for $120. And you probably get more compliments on the H&M top than you do the pants or shoes.

With high-low wine you can find some fabulous bottles for less than $15 that I bet you’ll get compliments on. But every now and then you want to splurge on a great pair of $300 boots just because. Same with wine, there are just some times when a splurge on a bottle with a price tag of $20 or higher is justified. I’ve made list of 20 wines, with pairs grouped according to the high-low principle. Read more

DRINK – Why Is This Bottle of Bubbly Upside Down in Water?


Wine & Spirits magazine throws one heck of a party. The annual “Top 100 Wines” soiree was on Wednesday night in San Francisco. You do not want to miss it. Quite simply, where else are you going to taste a 1988 Veuve Cliquot Champagne, Shafer’s Hillside Select or see a bottle of bubbly opened and disgorged under water.

That’s right. Not just opening the bottle. Disgorging it too (expelling the yeast sediment), all under water, right before you drink it.

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