Keep the summer vibe going as long as you like with this Endless Summer Sangria, an original recipe by Maria Hunt, aka The Bubbly Girl. It celebrates all the colorful, juicy and delicious fruits in season as summer changes to fall.
September 2, 2021
One of the nice things about hosting a Thanksgiving dinner is that historical precedent has done much of the menu planning for you. And the seasonal produce calendar does the rest. There’s turkey, dressing (or do you say stuffing?), mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce. But what about the wine? Wine for Thanksgiving is a big deal, especially here in California. Of course, we’re all free to drink whatever we like with what we’re eating since the days of rigid pairing rules are over. After a couple decades of adult Thanksgivings, I’ve noticed that some wines create more delight–and pair with Thanksgiving’s rich, earthy and sweet flavors–better than others. So I created a list of wines that win when paired with most anything on your Thanksgiving table. If you can’t find these exact wines that’s OK; just use these five categories as a guide to happy Thanksgiving wine pairings…
November 27, 2019
If you’re one of those people who scans the sparkling wine and champagne list at every hip restaurant you visit, you’ve probably noticed a lot of biodynamic bubbly. If you’ve ordered one, hopefully you’ve been thrilled with the luxurious mouthfeel, exotic aromas and exuberant flavors. What the list probably doesn’t tell you is that these wines often are made using a process called pétillant-naturel or pét nat for short. For me, it’s one of the most exciting, unpredictable and delicious styles of bubbly to drink right now. A pét nat sparkling wine employs a minimal style of winemaking perfect for multi-taskers. It’s a one-step process that creates wine and adds bubbles at the same time. While the yeast is still eating sugar in the grape juice and producing alcohol and CO2 during the primary fermentation, the whole mixture is bottled. While fermentation happens inside the bottle, like with champagne, but the final wine…
April 11, 2018
I never know where I’ll discover a great sparkling wine that I’ve never tasted before. This summer, it happened at the grand opening of the Axiom Hotel, a tech-enhanced 152-room boutique hotel near Union Square in San Francisco. The owners kept vintage touches like scrolled columns and exposed brick, adding tech amenities like Bluetooth enabled 42-inch flat-screen TVs in rooms, Pac-Man and Space Invaders in the upstairs lobby and fiber-optic cable Wi-Fi that’s lightening fast and free. The hosts were showing off their signature cocktails like the Axiom, an updated sour with rye, honey, lemon and two kinds of bitters. And it was hard to ignore the dancers in the green LED-light suits. But I was more interested in the unfamiliar bottle of sparkling wine I spotted behind the bar: Richard Grant Pinot Noir Cuvée Rosé Brut. When I finally got a glass at the downstairs bar, I loved the…
September 20, 2016
It seems I have thousands of pictures of champagne and sparkling wine cocktails on my poor overworked MacBook. But that’s part of why I love Pinterest, because it collects all sorts of inspiration, and so beautifully. Here are five fabulous cocktails from my Bubbly Cocktails board on Pinterest, along with links to the recipes. Be sure to follow me for more! 1. Sloe Motion This cocktail from The Continental Midtown in Philadelphia was featured in Saveur. Though the recipe is just three ingredients, quite often simple things have the most impact. Love the licorice garnish! 2. Campari and Orange Sparkling Cocktail I find Campari’s bitterness tough to take on its own. But when I tasted a cocktail by Paul Mant at Quo Vadis, which mixed the Italian aperitif with orange, lemon and champagne, it started a whole new chapter. This easy drink from Cooking Light will show you…
December 28, 2013