The last winery visit during our Sicily adventure was to Caruso e Minini in Marsala. This is a relatively young winery that was created when fourth-generation winemaker Stefano Caruso partnered with Northern Italian marketer extraordinaire Mario Minini to create this brand that now exports mostly indigenous Sicilian varieties, including Grillo, Catarratto, Grecanico, Inzolia, Zibibbo, Nero d’Avola, Frappato and Perricone as well as some international varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Syrah, and Merlot. Today, the company is helmed by Stefano’s two daughters, Giovanna and Rosanna. I am a huge fan of their wines. In addition to the Perricone, I have enjoyed…
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The Weekly Pour is the culmination of the micro posts on Strong Coffee to Red Wine. Each week subscribers will be notified via an email that posts are available to read and enjoy. This does not apply to folks using another RRS feeder. Contesa dei Venti 2020 Vittoria Doc Nero D’Avola Sicilia Last October in Sicily, on our visit to Donnafugata, we had the good fortune to have Tommaso Bellisola, the Senior Hospitality Manager at the Vittoria tasting room, lead our tasting. His depth of knowledge and his passion for Donnafugata wines was a perfect match for our needs. Contesa…
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The inhabitants of Sicily have been making wine for millennia. However, the Phoenicians in the 1100 – 1000 BCE brought vines, advanced enology, and viticulture knowledge to the island, which began the quest for quality wine. Sicily’s wineries have been raising the bar ever since. Wine grapes are grown all over Sicily, including 23 DOC sub-regions and one DOCG sub-region. The island is most known for wines from Marsala DOC, Vittoria DOC, and Etna DOC. Etna DOC wines drew me to Sicilian wines, so we started our trip there. Side Note: In preparation for this trip, I read a couple…
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We have been home from our wine trip to Sicily for two weeks. Jetlag was a real ogre. I was almost non-functional for days. But now there is excellent clarity. We were on the island for a two-week trip using my self-guided itinerary. We accomplished a lot and covered a lot of territory, probably too much. But when I am in a new foreign location, FOMO takes over. I fear I may not return, so I cram the schedule full. Even though I left several days for sightseeing, it sometimes felt rushed, and I did not like that. But such…
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January is always a mix of end of the year to-dos and new year ponderings. As such, my life lately has been a hotbed of busy. We have already done our taxes; thanks to the best tax guy in town, if not the world, Steven @ The Clem Collaborative. I have cleaned the studio and will do it again this weekend as it takes several passes to get it right. At some point in the next two weeks, I have got to tackle the piles of papers that I keep acquiring. No matter how hard I try to not make…
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The gorilla trek on day two started the same as the day before. Only this time with the promise kept for a challenging hike. The journey in the van to get to our starting point was longer, and the hike from the start was beyond our wildest dreams. As I said in the day one post, that trek was about three and a half hours in total. One hour with the gorillas and the remaining two and a half driving and hiking round trip. Day two was a very different day. Exceptional in every way but definitely different. Now This…
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I am expanding the blog to include a Travel section. Over the years I have traveled to some pretty cool places. These trips were quite impactful, and I continue to be asked about them. So I thought that I might do a few posts about some of my previous trips. At the moment I will be featuring past excursions that include my time in Rwanda, Myanmar, Kenya, and Manitoba. They won’t all be this exotic for sure, but let’s get this going with our first day of gorilla treks. Walking with the Greatest of Apes Ever since I saw my first…
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