One of the coolest things about working in wine is the awesome people you get to meet. After all, famous and otherwise super groovy people love wine just like the rest of us.

One of the biggest rewards of my career in wine has been getting to spend time with Dale Robertson, Houston’s legendary sports writer.

Legendary, you ask? Just ask him about the time that Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini punched him out. Don’t believe me? Dale has the goods and the bruises to prove it.

The funny thing about our friendship is that I’m not into sports at all. I know, that’s weird. But beyond the Olympics and the occasional soccer game, it’s just not my thing.

The thing we do have in common is great food and wine.

Dale always says that he first got into haute dining when he covered the Tour de France. Back then, when print media was still queen, sports writers had fat cat expense accounts that allowed them to hobnob with the rich and famous. For a kid from El Paso with a degree in journalism from the University of Houston, it was like Dorothy stumbling upon the Golden Brick Road.

Somewhere along the way, he also became the wine writer for Houston’s paper of record.

And the tales he tells from those years, both gastronomic and Pindaric (how’s that for a 75-cent word?), are ripe with some damn good eating and drinking and some bigger-than-life colorful characters. I’ll never forget a crestfallen Dale eulogizing Bum Phillips over a bottle of 2006 Quintarelli Amarone after the football great passed away in 2013.

It must have been in late 2019 that he and I first started talking about launching a podcast. But it wasn’t until January of last year that we finally took the plunge.

We’re now in the second “season” of our show, with more than 20 episodes in the can.

It’s always a thrill when someone comes up to us a trade tasting and mentions that they’ve been listening. But I think that Dale would agree when I say that we really just keep doing it because we like hanging out and chewing the proverbial fat. It could also be that he loves our little Chihuahua, Paco. That’s Paco in his lap during a recent session.

Check out our podcast, “The Sport Wine Guy,” here. Thanks for listening!

The new Coravin sparkling wine closure system came to my attention late last year at the Boulder Burgundy Festival (disclosure: I’ve been a media consultant to the festival for more than 10 years).

As soon as our group tasted top-line Champagnes that had been accessed three and four weeks prior, it was clear that this new closure would be a game-changing for sparkling wine programs at restaurants and wine bars.

Sparkling wine, arguably more than any other category, needs to stay fresh and vibrant in by-the-glass programs. And it can be a huge headache for a beverage director who’s trying to manage costs when sparkling wine loses its verve after just one day/night of service.

The fitness of the accessed wines was so impressive that it immediately hit me: why not try a similar experiment with Prosecco?

And what better occasion than the Taste of Italy trade fair and festival in Houston where my friend (and former client) Flavio Geretto would be presenting the Villa Sandi Houston Sommelier Competition?

Villa Sandi’s wines are known for their extreme freshness and shelf life. Their reputation is owed in great part to a one-tank system of sparkling wine production developed by their winemaker Stefano Gava (one of the most brilliant figures working in Prosecco today imho). The idea was born when the winery started shipping its wines across the world. They needed, the owner realized, to extend the shelf life so that the wines would still be fresh on the nose and the palate when they reached far-flung destinations.

On Sunday, March 13, when candidates in the Villa Sandi Houston Sommelier Competition take a break for lunch, Flavio and I will be pouring the above bottles — accessed on Sunday, March 27, two weeks prior to the event — side by side with bottles of the same wine opened the same day.

What better way to test the Coravin closure than with a wine whose signature is freshness and extended shelf life?

In the video below, I documented the opening and sealing of the bottles (thanks to Georgia Parzen for her handy camerawork btw!).

Registration for the competition and the festival, including trade and consumer seminars and tastings, is now open. Please visit the fair’s website for details etc.

The competition is open to all active sommeliers, from anywhere in the world. The first prize includes a $750 stipend and all-paid trip to Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine trade fair (back on this year!) next month. I highly encourage you to compete.

Thanks for checking it out and thanks for the support! And here’s to Villa Sandi for their sponsorship of the festival!

I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Cinzia Merli (above, center), the owner of Le Macchiole in Bolgheri for this week’s virtual winemaker dinner at Roma restaurant in Houston where I run the wine program.

Cinzia, producer of some of Tuscany’s most highly rated and expensive wines, is a true Super Tuscan Super Hero.

In the late 1990s, her family owned a humble tavola calda, cafeteria-style restaurant in Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast. Like many Tuscan restaurateurs at the time, they made their own wine to sell to their guests. And when the Super Tuscan craze of that decade began to take shape, it was only natural that she and her husband would want to throw their hat into the ring. The couple bought land, planted vineyards, hired a top consulting enologist, and began making wine.

To their surprise, their first releases were met with critical and commercial success. The future looked bright.

But then tragedy struck: Cinzia’s still young husband passed away unexpectedly, leaving her a single mother and signatory to the loans they had procured as they expanded their production.

In an era where male chauvinism still dominated the wine world, most of her neighbors expected her to close the winery.

Instead, she rolled up her sleeves and set out to build her brand in Italy and beyond. And the rest is history. Fast forward to 2022: her current release Messorio sells for around $250 a bottle (retail).

I first met Cinzia in 2007 when her star was ascendant. I visited her winery the following year. She is simply one of the loveliest persons I’ve ever met in the wine industry and her wines are phenomenal.

I want to let her tell the whole story tomorrow night. So I’ll stop here.

But I hope you can join us as we taste her Bolgheri Rosso, a blend of international grape varieties, including her celebrated Merlot. Along the way, we are going to talk about the macchia mediterranea, the “maquis” or shrubland biome that makes the wines of Le Macchiole (named after the macchia) so special.

If ever there were a virtual winemaker dinner not to miss, this is it, folks. I hope to see you there.

And on a technical note, this is the last virtual winemaker dinner we’ll be doing for a while. Yesterday, we hosted our first in-person (private) wine dinner for the Houston chapter of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina. And next week, we’ll be relaunching our free pre-dinner wine tastings. On March 17, we’ll be hosting our first in-person winemaker dinner since late last year (details forthcoming).

Thank you for your support. And thank you for loving Italian wines as much as I do!

Above: the winners of the Houston Sommelier Competition in 2019, the first and only year of the event to date. At the time, it was known as the Houston Awesomm Sommelier Competition and was only open to Houston-based wine professionals. It’s now open to anyone who would like to compete (except for full-fledged members of the Court of Sommeliers).

Registration for the Taste of Italy, March 13-14 in Houston, the largest food and wine trade fair in the U.S. devoted exclusively to Italian products, is now open!

Click here to register for seminars, tastings, and grand tasting.

This year’s gathering includes: the Houston Sommelier Competition; a seminar on sustainable wine from Umbria with Steven McDonald MS and writer Dale Robertson (open to trade); a seminar on pairing Texas BBQ with Chianti (open to trade and consumers) featuring pit master Ara Malekian, Italian wine expert Tom Dobson (Spec’s), and food writer Eric Sandler (CultureMap); and the grand tasting all day on Monday, March 14 at the Hilton Houston Post Oak.

The winner of the Houston Sommelier Competition will receive a $750 stipend and a fully sponsored trip to Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine trade fair in Verona. The runner up will receive a stipend of $750. The second runner up will receive $500.

This year’s testing is open to any and all sommeliers, from anywhere in the world, except for full-fledged members of the Court of Sommeliers.

The Texas Wine School will also be offering to waive course fees for two candidates beyond the runners up. These awards will be made on the basis of testing results, the candidates’ resumés, and financial need.

Texas BBQ and Chianti is the one seminar open to consumers. It’s the fair’s most popular event and will sell out quickly. Be sure to register to ensure availability.

All the seminars will be moderated by me.

I’ve been working as a consultant with the Italy-American Chamber of Commerce since the second year of the fair. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career: connecting Italian food and wine producers with trade professionals in my adoptive hometown and state.

For many years now, our office of the chamber (South Central) has been rated the number one office in all of North America (sorry, New York!). I’m really proud of the great work we do.

I hope you can join us! Thanks for checking it out and thanks for loving Italian food and wine!

Please consider donating to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard overlooking the neo-Confederate memorial in the southeast Texas town where Tracie grew up. We plan to have the artwork up in time for MLK Day 2022. And if we can raise enough money, it will remain in place throughout Black History Month. Thank you.

There are certain nights when work doesn’t feel like, well… “work.”

Yesterday evening was one of those times. Last night, Giuseppe Vaira, legacy grower and winemaker at G.D. Vajra in Barolo, joined Roma restaurant guests and me for a tasting of his excellent 2017 Barolo Albe.

It’s a wine that his family has been making for roughly two decades and it’s always been a go-to wine for me, whether as a wine lover or a wine director looking for an approachable but still classic Barolo that even guests with little Nebbiolo experience will love.

But last night’s 2017 was a cut above. It had a depth of flavor that was only matched by its balance and grace. Maybe it was just our mood at our last virtual wine dinner of the year. Maybe it was just that the stars were perfectly aligned.

Or maybe it’s just that this wine, as Giuseppe so beautifully put it, has grown up like the vines that were planted many years ago to produce it. In his view, it was the age of the vines combined with the uniqueness of the vintage that brought the wine into crystal clear focus.

Or maybe, just maybe… it was because we weren’t the only ones drinking it. While we were chatting and tasting over a Zoom call (at 2:30 in the morning for Giuseppe!), one of America’s most famous sports figures was enjoying it at the restaurant. I dunno… there was just something in the air!

My heartfelt thanks goes out to Giuseppe for joining us so early in the morning. It was a truly magical event and a fantastic way to close out our year in wine. Thanks to all our guests at the restaurant who have supported the virtual events over the last two years. We have every intention of bringing you more and more virtual content. Stay tuned and happy new year!