Colorado Vine.http://www.coloradovine.com For the wine proletariat - or the dinner host who's in a hurry to pick something up on the way home from work tonight - here are a few fail-safe wine-and-food pairing recommendations from Anthony Sinese, executive chef at The Inverness Hotel, and Steve Whited, co-owner and Sommelier at Denver's Black Pearl restaurant. By Stewart Schley http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=76 Serving a luscious prime rib Saturday night? If conventional wine wisdom guides you, you'll snag a favorite Cabernet Sauvignon from the store and cross “wine” off your list. By Stewart Schley http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=75 For a relaxing full weekend with no driving and many wine experiences, take the Colorado Wine Train, sponsored by the Colorado branch of the American Automobile Association. The spring wine trains are offered two weekends - April 11-13 and April 18-20 - for $595 per person. By Alta Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=74 Spring in the wine industry means the anticipation of new wines, which have been sitting in barrels or aging tanks for months waiting to be bottled and put on liquor store shelves. For some, spring also means getting to taste those wines out of the barrels before anyone else. By Alta Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=73 <em>Pat Miller, aka The Gabby Gourmet, hosts “The Gabby Gourmet Restaurant Show” on KHOW-AM 630, every Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Miller also writes the “Gabby Gourmet Restaurant Guide,” now in its 22nd edition. By Pat Miller http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=64 Winemakers, like any farmers, have to take what nature has given them in the way of a grape crop. That's as true in Colorado's wine industry as anywhere else. And in 2007, Mother Nature hit the state's grape growers with a one-two-three weather punch that undoubtedly will impact future wine releases. By Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=63 If you live in Boulder, do business in Colorado or simply prefer soy milk in your daily double latte, you likely know the story of how Steve Demos went from peddling tofu out of a red wagon in the 1970s to selling his company, White Wave, maker of tofu and the popular Silk brand soy milk, to Dean Foods for a reported $194 million in 2002. By Carlotta Mast http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=62 Like many great vintages, women winemakers are a rare find. A 2005 Gallup poll reported that women are more than 52 percent of the population and buy 55 percent of the wine. Yet only 15 percent to 20 percent of the winemakers in California are women. By Alta Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=61 Among the newest wineries in Washington state is the Waters Winery, which has started earning a reputation in its short life for Old World-style wines. The winery, started in Walla Walla in 2005, was founded by Colorado Springs entrepreneur Jason Huntley. By Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=60 “Sustainability” is the concept du jour in the business world – not a new idea necessarily but an idea whose time has clearly arrived as we focus on the need to be more responsible stewards of our communities. By Bart Taylor http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=59 California cult wineries are by definition small and their wines exclusive, expensive and predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon. About a dozen wineries have reached cult status. One of the first, if not the first, cult wineries in the United States was Silver Oak Cellars, a winery with Colorado roots that started in a dairy barn with an exclusive focus on one grape. By Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=54 Probably no other woman working in the Colorado hospitality industry has more inside skinny on the state of women's hospitality careers than Ilene Kamsler. As the president of the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association for 21 years, Kamsler serves as the primary advocate for the lodging industry in Colorado, working to promote and protect the industry, including monitoring legislative and regulatory issues relative to the lodging industry and its members. By Cathie Beck http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=46 Canoe Ridge Columbia Valley Cabernet – 2003 Christophe Paubert is the winemaker and obviously has brought his French influence to the wines he is crafting in Washington State. You can taste it. By Keith Miller, the Denver wine guy http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=45 You're starting your dinner at a neighborhood bistro by enjoying a fresh salad. Do you know where those greens came from? Perhaps you're savoring them at The Kitchen, a restaurant in Boulder, where chef/owner Hugo Matheson procures them from Cure Organic Farm, an 8-acre farm in Boulder County. By KAREN MITCHELL http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=44 Shopping for wine can be a great experience, much more interesting than buying a six-pack or bottle of spirits. But unless I know precisely what I want before I make the trip, navigating the retail wine scene can be irritating. By Bart Taylor http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=43 STEEL CORK After a champagne spill due to a faulty bottle stopper, industrial designer Joseph De La Cruz took it upon himself to come up with a better one. Debuting about five years ago, his Steel Cork has an expanding silicon O-ring that is truly leak-proof. By Eric Peterson http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=42 Close your eyes while listening to John Sutcliffe speak and your mind might very well place him in a gentleman's club in London. So it is somewhat of a shock, with your eyes open, to see this rugged outdoorsman on his ranch and vineyard in a remote Colorado canyon within view of the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico. By Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=32 Thai food has risen from a little-understood ethnic cuisine to downright trendy both internationally and in the United States, and Colorado, too, is in a growth mode when it comes to Thai restaurants. These sumptuous dining spots are always an experience in new tastes and aromas, and the adventure is even more satisfying if you come equipped with some knowledge of Thai food history, the traditional dishes and ingredients. By Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=31 Last month's news that Wine X magazine had folded provided an interesting backdrop to this note, a letter from the publisher in the first issue of Vine magazine that can be considered truly stand-alone. Bart Taylor http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=30 OK, this is the month when seemingly all of America raises glasses of Guinness Stout to the patron saint of Ireland. But while you're toasting Saint Patrick on March 17, Brian Dunn will be raising a glass to a different holy Emerald Isle icon: St. By Marty Jones http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=29 ASPEN - The St. Regis Resort, formerly the Ritz Carlton, is now a jewel of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Following a $37 million renovation in 2005, the Aspen resort features a state-of-the-art spa, luxurious accommodations and dining - luxuries becoming the St. By Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=27 The four Colorado restaurants with the largest wine cellars made themselves that way for a reason: to serve their customers with the largest choice of wine to match with their food. Each of the four have garnered various awards from Wine Spectator, the national wine magazine, indicating their ability to match food to wine and wine to their food. By Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=26 The four Colorado restaurants with the largest wine cellars made themselves that way for a reason: to serve their customers with the largest choice of wine to match with their food. Each of the four have garnered various awards from Wine Spectator, the national wine magazine, indicating their ability to match food to wine and wine to their food. By Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=25 It's 9 a.m. in mid-September, and 10 judges are sitting at tables in a hotel conference room in Grand Junction, facing the prospect of tasting about 175 wines by the end of the day. That may sound like fun to some people, but to the judges it is work - a lot of work that ends with a half dozen or so wines being given gold medals in the Colorado Mountain Winefest, the state's largest and longest-running wine festival. By Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=23 Italy is home to well over 1,500 different grapes. Most of us are familiar with Sangiovese (used in Chianti) or Nebbiolo (in Barolo), but there are other grapes that are equally important in Italian wine making. Claude Robbins, The Wine Guy http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=22 If you didn't have time last May to pore through the Colorado wine industry's economic impact study, rest assured that your homegrown wine industry is healthy and relatively successful. Bart Taylor http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=21 “I'm second-generation Italian,” says Dawn Gaudini, who is known within local wine circles as “La Madonna del Vino.” “When I was growing up, my father cooked and we always had wine. Eric Peterson http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=20 In the world of food fads, one ethnic cuisine endures and prospers in America: Italian. Pizza, sausage, veggie and pasta have become part of the Colorado and U.S. restaurant vocabulary, and, while for many years the number of authentic Italian restaurants remained relatively constant in the state, today there is a resurgence of cooking talent and quality food that is producing a new set and style of Italian restaurants to serve a Colorado clientele whose devotion to the cuisine has never been higher. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=19 Cheers to the Colorado vintners whose families transplanted their Italian roots in Colorado soil and today celebrate their ancestors' passion and methods for winemaking. Someday scientists studying the human genome might discover an Italian gene that codifies the way to make wine. Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=18 The Italian-American community newspaper Andiamo! recently dubbed Parisi the “best Italian restaurant” in Colorado. Simone Parisi opened the eponymously named restaurant shortly after moving to Colorado from Florence, and it immediately burgeoned into a bustling business. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=17 Sure, when gourmands think of Italy they think of red wine, red sauce, and pizzas and pastas accompanied by the same. (OK, maybe they think of Pavarotti and Sophia Loren, too.) No doubt it's the vino that puts Italy on the minds and lips of the drinking set. Marty Jones http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=16 When the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in May 2005 on a case styled Granholm v. Held, the headlines read something like: "Pop the Champagne: Court Knocks Down Wine Shipping Restrictions. Doug Caskey http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=15 To quote roots rocker Webb Wilder, "You're never too small to hit the big time." Kevin DeLange understands this more than any brewer in Colorado these days. A few weeks ago he stepped across a stage before thousands of his peers at the World Beer Cup awards ceremony in Seattle. Marty Jones http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=14 By Beginning as early as April, farmers' markets open across the state and thousands of Coloradans converge on them, from Cherry Creek in Denver to Grand Junction on the Western Slope. With local growers selling a plethora of organically and naturally grown produce, more customers are arriving earlier every year to get the pick of the crop. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=13 on the cover Best Generation X wine shop, Divino Wine & Spirits From the most beautiful of wine-country scenery to the snazziest accessory to dress your wine glass in, ColoradoVINE brings you 26 "Best of" choices from among all the things your state's wine industry has to offer. Colorado Vine staff http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=12 Decorating a kitchen or dining area in a mountain home used to require a trip to Denver. Today, mountain homeowners have stores closer at hand, and, in the Vail-Beaver Creek area, Kitchen Collage in upscale Riverwalk in Edwards, is top of mind. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=10 It's not often a business emerges in the food industry that receives accolades in a national magazine in just three short months. eat! drink!, a unique wine-and-specialty-foods concept introduced in Edwards two years ago accomplished just that. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=9 <em>Marty Jones is a Denverbased promoter of smallbatch beer and music. He drinks left-handed, plays guitar right-handed, and his dog's name is Barley. Marty refuses to eat in restaurants that don't carry ambitious beer. Marty Jones http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=8 Exploring the food and wine of Colorado's restaurants is an experience that reveals dining quality can be found not only in the elegant restaurants of the state's resort hotels, but also in some of Colorado's small-town cafes. Alta and Brad Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=7 All of the wines reviewed in this issue of VINE issue are new to Colorado, not necessarily all made in Colorado. One of the advantages of living in a state that is a test market for many producers is that we can enjoy a wide range of wines from all over the world. Claude Robbins, The Wine Guy http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=6 As the ski season winds down and mud season approaches, April isn't the month you'd expect to see heavy traffic around the Vail Village - unless you're aware of the Taste of Vail. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=5 Driving along the highways adjacent to the streams and rivers in Colorado, you've likely seen a bevy of fly fishermen wading in the frigid waters. This sport is growing in popularity, and Gorsuch Outfitters is angling to help fly fishermen catch that elusive brown trout. Kathy Smith http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=4 As a world-class resort destination, Vail needs no introduction. The town and ski mountain are safely ensconced on most every "best of" travel and leisure list compiled annually in the trade press. Povy Kendal Atchison http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=2 Colorado wineries arrive late to the wine game. Establishing a foothold in this hypercompetitive market is now, by any measure, a daunting challenge. The fact is that more wine, better wine, is being made now than ever before. Bart Taylor http://www.coloradovine.com/articles.asp?id=1