Since we’re in the business of selling I don’t usually go around advertising the fact that there is some quality free stuff on the site. If you’re feeling a little strapped this holiday season (or just miserly) have a look. All it takes is the ability to download a pdf, letter size-paper, an inkjet printer and possibly a letter sized frame and you’ve got yourself an appallingly cheap yet high quality gift.

My apologies to everyone who has been camping out in our virtual line. If you would like to pre-order, you can do so now for a 25% discount. The map will ship on May 3rd, 2011. Thank you for your patience.

It’s great to hear that Wine Blogging Wednesday is back. I wasn’t a great participant but missed it (kind of like the water when the well runs dry). In the spirit of true unoriginality, I reached in the fridge door for a Tio Pepe while watching the Arsenal – Barcelona match (Arsenal 2-1 woo hoo!). [...]

Leonardo Locascio wants to simplify Italian wine laws. Although he’s done a great deal to get Americans to look beyond the wicker basket Chianti bottles of the 1970′s, he’s now had enough. At the Vino 2011 Conference in New York City last month he said “most Italian wine laws are totally irrelevant to the American [...]

Very sorry about the delay – the release date is now March 31th. Thanks for your patience!

To see a sample of our Wine Map of Italy, please download our Wine Map of Sicily. It’s a fairly large pdf file (551KB) so please be patient. It’s also the freshest slice of Sicilian oenological cartography available anywhere!

It’s a little awkward, but we’re being quiet about the release of our much anticipated Wine Map of Italy for the first week. The company that does our order processing – The Wine Appreciation Guild – has an unforeseen backlog of orders, and we don’t want to compound the problem. Our official email announcement and [...]

note: the release date has been pushed back from the 15th to the 19th due to plant power outages in Upstate NY – sorry! Testing the limits of software, intestinal fortitude, bureaucracy and sanity (in no particular order), the Wine Map of Italy is now being printed and will be available on July 15th 19th. [...]

The Wine Century Club celebrated its 5th anniversary on May 8th. On that day, members throughout the world collectively tasted 314 different grape varieties. The Wine Century Club is for wine adventurers who have tried at least 100 different grape varieties. It currently boasts 779 members from 21 different countries including Australia, the Bahamas, Brazil, [...]

Why does it take so long to make these things? Can’t you just trace a bunch of maps supplied by the regions? I wish it were that easy. Funny enough, very few regions in Italy publish their own maps or really do much to tell the world that they exist. Take one of Basilicata’s newer [...]

Pear drop is a term often used by wine writers to describe the flavor of Beaujolais Nouveau. These writers would all be British since pear drops are virtually unknown in North America. They’re a traditional type of candy that the British call boiled sweets and Americans call hard candy. They get their flavor from isoamyl [...]