In The Bottle with Angelica Nohra!

As someone in the wine industry, I think I get a little complacent about the wine knowledge I have and forget what I believe is 'common knowledge', isn't really that common. As we sell Tuscan Wine, a lot of the DOCG appellations are secured with Cork. I have had a number of people return bottles to be and say "how do I open it?" which has shocked me...Also, a number of people who won't buy our wine because they can't open the cork seal. I personally, love stelvin caps...I love that the problem of Ullage and Corkage can be eliminated with one...

We do a lot of live shows to go out there and allow people to try our wine before they buy it. As we sell Italian Wine, the Chianti Fiasco bottle gets quite a bit of attention. People have been consistently asking "why does the bottle look like that?" Bottle shapes generally do represent the region or varietal to some degree. 1. Bordeaux: Straight-sided and high-shouldered with a pronounced punt.2. Burgundy: Tall bottles with sloping shoulders and a smaller punt.3. Rhône: Similar to the tall bottles with sloping shoulders and a smaller punt of Burgundy, but traditionally less fat.4. Rhine: Narrow...

Parts of an Italian Wine Label Italian wine labels are widely varied in how they look. Fortunately there are a specific set of information and clues that you can proactively seek out to determine what it is. The next time you are looking bewildered at an Italian wine label, try to identify the following characteristics: Wine Type: Grape Variety as in “Montepulciano d’Abruzzo” or “Sagrantino di Montefalco” By Region or sub-region, such as “Chianti” By Name such as “Sassicaia” (sass-ah-ki-yah) Region The region or sub-region will always be located next to the classification level Classification (DOCG, DOC, IGT, Vino da...

Scared to mispronounce some of these Italian Varieties? Never fear for we have found the BEST Pronunciation guide going around! To fully enjoy your Italian wine-drinking experience, practice with the following pronunciation guide — the syllable in all CAPS is the one to accent. Soon, you'll be speaking Italian like a true wine lover. Amarone: ah mah RO nae Brunello di Montalcino: brew NEL lo dee mahn tahl CHEE no Chianti Classico: key AHN tee CLAHS see co Dolcetto: dohl CHET toh Morellino di Scansano: moh-ray-LEE-no • dee • scahn-ZAH-no Prosecco: pro-SAY-ko Montepulciano: mon tae pull chee AH noh Moscato...

I'm happy to admit that I am someone that knows a little about everything, not a lot about something. I am also that person who knows random facts about things people don't care about...but I love it! Here are my a few of my top wine trivia. #1 The phrase "drinking to your health", comes from Ancient Greece where a party host would drink the wine first to check for poison #2 Legend says wine was discovered when a Persian woman tried to take her own life by eating fermented grapes, thinking them poisonous. She apparently went back to the...

Today we explore 5 ways to keep that body looking hot even though you want to wine daily! Alcohol = Sugar - keep an eye on the alcohol content!There are many assumptions that red wine has less calories than white. This is a mistruth. The calories actually come from the alcohol content as well as how many grams of sugar per litre are in the wine!A gram of alcohol has 7 calories compared to a gram of carbohydrate (sugar), which has 4 calories.e.g. In a standard 100mL glass of Italian Sangiovese or Pinot Grigio with 13% alcohol you can expect...

We have all experienced it. That moment your friend turns up, ready for a chat session, last minute. You know they are going to want wine. You look around and darn, only your cheap and cheerful stash is available! Why oh WHY didn't your friend tell you they were coming by? Never fear guys, here is a quick couple of tricks to help your $8 cheapy wine taste like a $20 bottle. SHAKE THAT BOTTLEI had a friend once tell me about this. I watched him shake the heck out of a bottle of Penfolds Rawsons Retreat. I thought that...

As many people would know, we do a lot of wine shows. We love them because we get to see the reactions of people when they try our wine and it helps us understand what is trending. It also means we get some really interesting questions about wine that I always assume is common knowledge but I guess it isn't. One question we get often is about serving temperatures and I was scrawling the internet and found this excellent infogram to highlight it perfectly! Hopefully this helps!