First, a little background on the business of wine bars. There is probably no harder way for a restauranteur to make money than to open a wine bar. Unlike a coffee shop, you can’t take it to go. Unlike a taproom, you’re making far less margin. And unlike the beer world, you can’t down three […]
8 am Friday I landed. 6 am Sunday I departed.46 hours. That’s what I had in Seattle, and boy I made the most of it. It had been too long, many years, and I returned to enjoy sights, sounds, tastes, views, and new discoveries. I was flown out for the weekend by the Washington State Wine […]
Tis the season of vacations, or planning the winter getaways. When it comes to being a wine lover in the Twin Cities, we are lucky to have easy access to both the west coast and to Europe in general. Booking a great wine vacation to Oregon, Sonoma, Washington, Santa Barbara, Finger Lakes, or France is […]
Greetings from the mountains of southeastern Arizona! One of my (many) Google airfare alerts is for Phoenix, and about six weeks ago a round trip fare of $150 direct on Delta popped up. The dates happened to fall right on top of Spencer’s spring break. We grabbed it, rented a little house in Bisbee via […]
Last December, anticipating a long, cold, snowy winter, Angela and I bought tickets for San Francisco to escape up to Napa and Sonoma for a few days in February. We landed on Wednesday the 15th of February and returned the following Monday. Yes, we missed out on a 60+ degree weekend in the Twin Cities, instead […]
For me, this is what the wine industry is all about. Mid Summer, 1995: The Mall of America had been open for three years, and the hottest restaurant in the Mall was California Cafe. I was there waiting tables, scrapping together every bit of money I could while attending the University of Minnesota. I didn’t […]
Ever look back at your personal calendar and wonder how you pulled it off? That’s the case with me and December of 2015, for sure the busiest month I’ve had in quite some time. In terms of wine classes and education, it was phenomenal, and in terms of my personal life it was one of […]
