An early morning drive to the Champagne countryside was the moment I had been waiting for my entire trip. We were finally getting a chance to see where the famous Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier grapes are actually grown and where the smaller Champagne producers are settled. Guided by a Reims local, Valentin from […]

As a lover of wine and the finer things in life, my love for Champagne was inevitable. Having just blown out the candles on my 24th birthday, I couldn’t think of a more fitting place to celebrate than in the region where luxury is bottled. Early on a Saturday morning, my Finnish friend and I […]

The quest to discover the magic of Port wine had brought me to Portugal’s second largest city, home to colorfully splashed buildings, a lively waterfront, and enough wine to make you weak in the knees. The city of course is Porto, located on the northern bank of the Douro River, just a stone’s throw away […]

Some may be surprised by the fact that Portugal’s most famous wine is not actually produced in the city where it derives its name from. The magic of this precious liquid actually begins about 200 miles east in the Douro Valley. The Douro Valley is 70 miles of hillside-clinging vineyards shaped by the mighty Douro […]

Nestled between the Atlantic and the Gironde Estuary, sits the prestigious wine-producing region of the Médoc. Originating just south of the city of Bordeaux, the Médoc wine route weaves through the heart of some of the most fabulous wine appellations in the world: the Haut-Médoc, Margaux, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, and Saint-Estéphe, not forgetting Listrac and Moulis. […]

The sheer diversity of Spain truly mesmerizes me. In contrast to the dry, warm, and sunny Rioja wine region I visited a couple weeks ago, my recent trip to the Basque Country seemed worlds away. Located on the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic Coast, País Vasco (Spanish) or Eskuadi (Basque), experiences a mild maritime […]