Mary Cressler is a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers, and proprietor of Vindulge: Wine Education & Consulting. She conducts wine classes and events and offers consulting for individuals, wineries, restaurants, and event planners. She also writes freelance about wine, food, and travel and also on her blog Vindulge. She has a special affinity for pairing wine with smoked meats and loves all things sparkling wines. Mary resides in Portland, Oregon. For more information, send Mary an e-mail at mary AT vindulge.com
Staff writer and Pacific Northwesterner Mary Cressler explores the controversial nature of discussing Oregon's clones of Chardonnay in this piece from March.
Comté has just as rich a history and strict standards of production as the wine regions surrounding it. This cheese, like the most important wine regions of France, has true terroir.
"Sparkling wine is the pinnacle of winemaking. It’s very difficult to make a really exciting sparkling wine. It’s one of the holy grails of winemaking! It’s a very tough thing to get right."
I’m not going to lie, before heading to western Sicily earlier this month I had my reservations. There seemed to be a prevailing opinion on the region reflected in comments like, “enjoy those volcano wines,” to...