As everywhere, it is the nature of the geography that most influences the food and drink traditions of the Jura and Franche-Comté. The diverse landscape of mountains, dense forests, high meadows, vineyards, lakes and the river plain have all shaped what the local population ate and drank....

Wine Scholar Guild honors Sheral Schowe, M.Ed., FWS, as Instructor of the Year and the Art Institute of Vancouver as Program Provider of the Year for 2016! Instructor of the Year is an award of excellence recognizing creative and effective classroom instruction. The recipient is selected based...

Wine Scholar Guild honors Sheral Schowe, M.Ed., FWS, as Instructor of the Year for 2016 and the Art Institute of Vancouver as Program Provider of the Year for 2016! Program Provider of the Year rewards professionalism and perfectionism in the business of wine education. Judging criteria includes...

Wine Scholar Guild honors Lim Hwee Peng CWE, FWS, as 2017 French Wine Scholar® (FWS) Instructor of the Year! FWS Instructor of the Year is an award of excellence recognizing creative and effective classroom instruction for the French Wine Scholar study & certification program. The recipient is...

Wine Scholar Guild honors West London Wine School as 2017 French Wine Scholar® (FWS) Program Provider of the Year! FWS Program Provider of the Year rewards professionalism and perfectionism in the business of wine education and delivery of the French Wine Scholar study & certification program....

Wine Scholar Guild honors Chris Miller of San Francisco Wine School as 2017 IWS Instructor of the Year! IWS Instructor of the Year is an award of excellence recognizing creative and effective classroom instruction for the Italian Wine Scholar study & certification program. The recipient is...

Wine Scholar Guild honors Toronto's Independent Wine Education Guild (IWEG) as 2017 Italian Wine Scholar® (IWS) Program Provider of the Year! IWS Program Provider of the Year rewards professionalism and perfectionism in the business of wine education and delivery of the Italian Wine Scholar study...

Autumn in Champagne is a spectacular time to explore the region. The countryside and vineyards are abounding in rich palettes of color and the intoxicating fall fragrance instills a unique sensorial experience. Champagne is like laughter as it fills my senses with joy, especially when the cork...

As autumn is drawing to a close and the wine presses have been washed and put away, the first wines tasted before being blended confirm what had been sensed: 2016 is going to be a fabulous vintage! And if some compare it to the magnificent 2010, some others do not hesitate to go as far as the...

Sadly, time has marched on, since the fantastic Bourgogne Immersion Trip I took with the Wine Scholar Guild lead by Andrew Jefford, October 23 – 28, 2016. Everyone on the trip was definitely a “wine nerd” but the group was composed of a mix of wine industry professionals, wine students of all...

Meeting Andrew Jefford today could easily lead one to believe that he was born knowing enormous volumes of information about the wines of the world, and has always been able to explain them in the manner of a poet laureate. As the leader of a 2016 Wine Scholar Guild study tour of Southwest France,...

Lonely Planet has released their Best in Travel 2017 guide about THE places to visit in the next year…and Bordeaux tops their list as the No. 1 city destination in the world! Bordeaux contains more preserved historical buildings – such as Place de la Bourse – than any city in France aside from...

Glera is the principal grape of Prosecco sparkling wine. Originally the grape was known as Prosecco (more precisely Prosecco Tondo). The variety has an unclear origin and an even more complicated ampelographic history due to the fact that several distinct varieties have been called...

A BIT OF WINE CHEMISTRY: Lessons from Champagne Day one of the Champagne study trip initiated a discussion which continued throughout the week of factors impacting aromas and flavors in champagne. Broadly, aromas can be categorized into the impacts of grape variety, terroir, vinification, and...

Italian red wines may get all the attention, but insiders know that Italian whites are as varied and interesting as the country’s reds. Italy’s multitude of mountains and hills ensures wines with bright acidity—the hallmark of Italian whites. Acidity is what makes a wine food friendly, and Italian...

The Super-Whites of Friuli In the late 1970s, the producer, Jermann, created Vintage Tunina, a complex blend of native and international white grapes that became iconic among Friuli’s superior white blends. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Jermann inspired several other Friuli producers,...

Collio (or Collio Goriziano) DOC Collio’s vineyards date back to pre-Roman times; they were of renown then and are held in high esteem now. Their impressive whites are considered the finest in Friuli and are among the finest in Italy.

The best way to make sense of Italian red wines is to simply start tasting them. Italy offers the perfect red wine for every occasion—from pizza on Monday to roast beef with the in-laws on Sunday. Many of Italy's best red wines are labeled with the name of the wine appellation, often combined with...

Friuli Grave DOC Friuli Grave was previously called Grave del Friuli but is often simply referred to as Grave. This is the largest DOC, both in terms of area under vine and in production. It accounts for more than one-third of Friuli’s total wine production.

Emilia-Romagna is one of the wealthiest regions in Italy and in all of Europe. It is a cultural nexus, thanks to the beautiful Romanesque and Renaissance architecture found in the cities of Bologna, Ferrara and Modena. The Rimini and Riccione beach resorts of the Adriatic are famous among the...