Ecstatic to be leaving Europe today.

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Greetings from Amsterdam (and no, I am not writing you from a smoke-filled coffee shop). Tomorrow, we return to NYC after 93 days in Europe.  Along the way, we have met countless inspiring artisans making wine, beer and spirits in the name of craftsmanship. They toil away in nooks around the world, battling the forces […]

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Brasserie a Vapeur, the only remaining steam brewery in the world, coming alive today for the once-a-month brew.

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Caught this gem on film yesterday at De Dolle Brouwers. Brewmaster Kris Herteleer’s mom breaks down in 20 seconds why beer holds the power of life.

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From the moment I let it be known I was entering the hallowed beer fields of Belgium, I have been getting emails, tweets and stones thrown through my hotel windows telling me about this place. Moeder Lambic has reached international fame, and it has a pen of rabid, salivating fans ready to cage match in […]

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As we wind our way through the beer roads of Belgium, I must take a moment to pay homage to my colleagues back in NYC.  While we’re chasing down the treasures of the Trappist monks and meeting the ambient yeasts of Brussels’ Lambics, they’re gearing up to light the Olympic torch tonight for the greatest […]

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The Paulinshof estate lies in Kesten, Germany, on a lazy stretch of the Mosel River.  The first historical records for the estate vineyards date back to 936 when it was owned by the St Paulin church in Trier.  Since the 1960’s, its been owned by the Jüngling family. Here is a pic I took of […]

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Hmm..I’ll take one of those, and two of those, and one of them and, oh!, one of those bottles for sure…

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…is Wiener Melange in your cup.

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If it’s crawling out of the glass, you know it’s gonna be good.

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For some, it is just a steep hill covered in vines. But for geeks like me, it is the Holy Grail of vineyards. And it goes by one name: the “Doctor“.  Two days ago, we climbed it. One of the most famous vineyards in all of Germany, it is a perfectly south-facing slope situated above […]

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Rüdesheim is a wine town.  Surrounded by vineyards and perched at the banks of the Rhine River, it is spectacular to see. For two nights, we sat on our hotel balcony watching the boats pass and the sun set over the water (and a ridiculous amount of trains, tracks and barges rumble past–the Rhine is, […]

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I ran across this ferocious bear in the town of St. Goar in the Rheingau region of Germany a few days ago. After watching him ruthlessly devour a tourist from Ohio who tried to appease him by offering him a glass of Riesling, I assessed my move carefully… My plan to smile graciously while holding […]

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“The production of this wine is a milestone in my life as a wine-grower and marks a break with the variety-over-Terroir dominance under which the Alsace region has suffered so greatly for the past 100 years.” – Jean-Michel Deiss While most of the winemakers of Alsace make single-variety wines from single plots of land, Domaine […]

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Your turn…caption contest.  GO!

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