Here’s what I have to say about wine and pizza:  it works! What’s not to love?

This week marks the second annual “Regional Wine Week.”  You might not have ever heard of “Regional Wine Week”, but as a reader of this website you most likely consider yourself a die-hard foodie. 

September 19 – 290 Wine Trail – Keilbase and Kabernet

Everyone knows the old phrase “It was a tedious job, but someone had to do it.”  Well, tasting one’s way through 48 wines in 90 minutes, then analyzing your tasting notes and picking four winners (still within the 90-minute time frame) certainly fell within the connotations of the phrase.

For those of you who don’t subscribe to Edible Austin Magazine – and everyone should – I wrote an article for their summer issue on a subject near and dear to my heart – Texas wine.  When publisher Marla Camp first approached me about writing the article we were having dinner at Ross Burtwell’s Cabernet Grill in Fredericksburg, the first restaurant in Texas to convert to an all-Texas wine list.  I was at once overwhelmed by the scope and asked Marla if she would require that I put my by-line on the feature.  After all, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the subject of Texas wine!  But I realized that perhaps I could clear some of that controversy and eagerly agreed to do it.

In macho Basque country, straddling the Pyrenees Mountains at the junction of Spain and France, there is a unique custom called “Poteo”.   Poteo is a “guys only” kind of male bonding ritual that consists of visiting as many bars as possible in one night and drinking a glass of a drink known as “Pitilingorri” at each bar. Pitilingorri, it seems, is a macho blend of rosé wine and lemonade.  True to its “boys night out” theme, the cheaper and nastier the rosé, the better.