By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Red wine headaches. It’s the most common reason we’ve heard for people abstaining from red wine, even though they like it. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “The sulfites in red wine give me headaches.” Ahhh!!! … asoioaweyr923q8htt9q48y9 … That was me banging my head against the keyboard. This is one ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  It’s hard to take a wine region seriously when its claims to fame were the birthplace of A&W Root Beer and the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Lodi. For most of the 20th century Lodi had the stigma of being a “box or bulk” wine producer. The region still produces 20 percent of the wine ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Wine and chocolate. To some they are an integral part of a special Valentine’s Day. I know many people tend to view chocolate as one of the basic food groups (my wife certainly does) and Valentine’s Day seems like the perfect occasion to celebrate the pairing of wine and chocolate. Contrary to popular ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Valentine’s Day – it’s a holiday unlike any other. The traditional autumn and winter holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve revolve around lots of family, friends, food, and parties. The summer holidays of Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day bring visions of parties, picnics, BBQ, and swimming. Valentine’s Day is ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Super Bowl is fast approaching and, if you’re like us, you’ll be glued to the TV watching the game and rating the quality of the commercials with your buddies. You may be interested in the halftime show but, to be honest, to an old fart like me, Justin Timberlake doesn’t hold a lot of ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  So you’re looking for a Champagne for New Years Eve but you’re not sure what to get.  Here are a couple of pointers to help zero in on the type of Champagne that you want. Things may get a touch confusing to start but I promise everything will be clear by the time ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  It’s the “final course” of our Holiday Food & Wine Pairing blog feature. After helping educate readers on general wine pairing tips, and specifics on pairing with appetizer dishes and main courses, we’re now ready to bring it all home with everyone’s favorite topic … Desserts! Depending on your sweet tooth, this is either the ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Welcome to part three of our Holiday Food & Wine Pairing blog feature. Today, the focus is on pairing some of the traditional Holiday Appetizers with wines. Type “Holiday Main Courses” into Google and you’ll get a pretty typical selection of meats that are commonly served as a main course for Christmas or ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Welcome to part two of our Holiday Food & Wine Pairing blog feature. Today, the focus is on pairing some of the traditional Holiday Appetizers with wines. General Rules for Pairing Appetizers with Wines Choose lighter wines to start. Starting with a heavy wine destroys your palate’s ability to detect the subtlety of ...

By Karen and Ken Geiszler, Winery-Sage.com —  Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a first timer, if you are planning to serve wine with your holiday meal, serving the right type of wine can’t be overstated. Below, we’ve provided some general terms and guidelines along with some handy links that are good to have at your fingertips. Once you’ve read ...