Search

Welcome to Wine Flair!

Ever felt awkward when ordering wine at a restaurant? Ever walked into a wine store and had no idea where to begin, what to buy or how much to pay?

Ever looked at a European wine label and wondered what’s in there? Then Wine-Flair.com is just for you. It’s all about wine education and appreciation, written in plain language.

Last Bottle Wines: A Mixed Bag (or Mixed Case)

I’ve been a very steady customer of Last Bottle Wines (LBW), an interesting and fun wine sale and delivery service. The way it works is simple – you subscribe, and they send you emails–daily–with an offer of a specific wine that is supposedly at a moderate- to deep discount. You set up

Read More »

New Jersey Wineries: Unionville Vineyards in Ringoes, NJ

Jersey is actually home to some very good wines, but unfortunately doesn’t really enjoy that reputation among wine aficionados, at least as far as I can tell.  Having volunteered there in the past during crush, and knowing Unionville Vineyards’ winemaker Cam Stark, I went back this past Sunday to Ringoes,

Read More »

Jersey Restaurants: INC in New Brunswick, NJ

You’d think it would be easy to get a good whiskey sour in any decent restaurant. After all, it’s a pretty simple and very classic drink, right? Well, I’ve had more watery sours in the last year than I can count, from Chicago to New York and several places in

Read More »

Jersey Restaurants: Hotoke Restaurant–Hot or OK?

I dined at Hotoke in New Brunswick on Friday night for the first time since at least 2011. I’d remembered the place fondly, and it was wildly popular at the time, so I was anticipating a fabulous meal. Sadly, not so much. Laura and I started out with cocktails—she with

Read More »

Jersey Restaurants: Chez Catherine in Westfield

This tiny place in Westfield, adjacent to a highway-type franchise hotel, bills itself as “one of the best French restaurants in New Jersey.” That is nonsense. It’s got to be the best French restaurant in New Jersey. And one of the best of any kind. I had lunch here years

Read More »

What’s in a Wine Word?

 The world of wine has a lot of terms, and an awful lot of them aren’t too familiar even among frequent wine drinkers. Some are downright silly.  Some are helpful. But in any event, I’ve built a pretty extensive wine glossary to help you unravel the mystery…and to find it, go

Read More »

The Organic Contessa

It’s always great fun to meet with a winemaker.  And it’s especially fun when the winemaker is a woman—in a somewhat-still male dominated field—and when she’s also an owner of an estate that goes back well more than a thousand years.  And she’s a Contessa! So I was very much looking forward to a

Read More »

Eye On Iberia!

I recently had the pleasure of tasting a bunch of Spanish wines, courtesy of Wines from Spain USA.  More Americans are drinking Spanish wine these days as far as I can tell just from what I’m served in friends’ houses, what I see on wine store shelves, and what people

Read More »