On the Subject of Corkage

Corkage fees have been controversial for as long as they have been around. I admit, I have been distressed numerous times in the past at having to pay a corkage fee on wine that I already own. It's similar to the feeling I get when I have a fee to withdraw my own money from a bank! Yet, with friends all over the food and wine industry, I also get a lot of great perspectives on the topic.

Happy New Year at Moresi's!

Ed MoresiAfter getting both of our outfits squared away, we decided to start the celebration of the end of 2008 with a stop at one of our favorite local steakhouses and cocktail bar, Moresi's Chophouse in Clayton, CA. Moresi's is housed in were two historic 1800's era buildings, now combined, in the long-standing rural enclave of Clayton, CA. Ed Moresi, longtime proprieter of the outstanding family dining and sports bar establishment Ed's Mudville Grill (check out the amazing collection of sports memorabilia!) son Dom and the rest of the Moresi clan have created a wonderful stop within the small, comfortable downtown of Clayton.

Syrah or Zinfandel?

One of the things that I've really tried to step up in my personal wine education is my ability to guess a blinded wine's provenance or origin. What is the grape, what is the region and if I'm super-lucky, what is the actual wine? In this case, led by Lisa and Joe, the gOenophiles' intrepid vinous adventurers decided to try and tackle one of the most difficult cases of guessing a blinded wine's varietal...New World Syrah/Shiraz vs. Zinfandel.

Wine.com Engenders Major Scorn Amid Shipping Sting

Wine.Com has taken the esoteric and somewhat archaic direct wine shipping laws into their own hands. At the very end of last year Wine.Com, took direct aim at competing online wine retailers by engaging in their own "sting operation" to flush out competing retailers that flout the direct wine shipping laws. Wine.com claims to spend millions in an attempt to satisfy these laws for their own business needs. This was first reported in the Wine Market Report 12/27/07, where they actually published some of the letters that Wine.Com wrote to state governments detailing these non-law abiding retailers, complete with order confirmations and receipts as evidence of the wine that was shipped illegally to Wine.Com's "sting operators" in each requisite state. The Wine Market Report was immediately credited and re-told by Alder Yarrow in his venerable Vinography blog on 01/04/08 and the report itself, was archived at the Specialty Wine Retailer's Association (SWRA) site here. Since Alder's post, the issue has exploded across the blogosphere and into more traditional print magazine sites...
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