Travel,Wine and Cuisine by Christopher J Davies

THE WORLD OF WINE PRICING AND HOW TO FIND GREAT VALUES! My wife and I recently visited the sleepy Languedoc region of Southern France with our two Son's. This region is on the Mediterranean Sea between Marseille and the Spanish boarder. Vin de Pays is the major appellation, but our favorite region visited was Côtes de Thongue, which produces wines from grapes grown to the west of Pézenas. The winemakers and proprietors were genuinely friendly and quite happy to offer tastes of their wines without charge! Most people don't know that the Languedoc-Roussillon region is dominated by 740,300 acres of vineyards, which is three times the combined area of the vineyards in Bordeaux! As one might imagine, the wines are designed to match the region's seafood. Dry Rosé that is fruity but bone dry, is gaining popularity. Cabernet, Merlot, Carignan Noir, Syrah (red and rosé), Pinot noir, Grenache, and Sauvignon are also produced. We were quite surprised to find that the average pri...

I was so pleased to host a tour of 37 wine lovers on Saturday. We departed from The Soho Grand Hotel at 8:30AM and picked up guests at Grand Central Station and Long Island. The morning was misty, but as we approached the North Fork things dried out. Our first stop was Macari Vineyards in Mattituck. This is one of my favorite wineries on Long Island. The Macari's are a great family that produce wonderful wines. Their wines have a great quality to price value. So unlike other LI wineries, I feel these wines compete competently amongst similar priced wines from domestic and international wineries. According to Joseph Macari SR, the proprietor, the 2008 Harvest was OK and not as fruitful as last year. We tasted Macari's new Early Chardonnay($16.99), which was made from grapes just picked this September 14th! The wine was crisp and had a powerful scent of ripe apples. Our second taste was a Cabernet Franc, which is in my opinion one of Long Island's best growing varietals. It h...