A Toast to Me!

In true “Claudia’s going to try wines” style, I went to a friend’s house to celebrate the release of his first published article.  A very good friend of mine brought out some of his wines for us to try, talk about generous because I was there about 4 hours and at that time, guests had [...]

Last week I was struggling with the menu for a wine pairing afternoon that myself and a friend were hosting.  The start of the planning process was a little labored (see last week’s post), but eventually turned into a delicious treat for 6 friends to share.  The following was our menu: We started off with [...]

Well I haven’t gone anywhere, i guess I just haven’t been turning my computer on at home (which is where I would blog from) when I get home from work. So what have I been up to? Well, wine of course! Oh and my recent explorations have included discovering the world of coupons – hey [...]

Little known fact about me is that I’m kind of a foodie — by that I mean that I enjoy cooking and I actually think I’m pretty good at it.  But I don’t only enjoy cooking, I enjoy exploring new recipes, learning new techniques (because I don’t know that many) and trying new foods.  The [...]

This evening I had the impromptu pleasure of meeting up with a close friend of mine to visit a new wine bar, Roman Holiday, which just opened (like yesterday) in Santa Clarita. I say visit loosely because (a) we wanted to meet up somewhere where we could talk and catch up on the happenings of [...]

A couple of weeks ago I stopped off at The Celler to pick up my WSET certificate — that’s right, I passed (with Merit, baby!)!  I met up with Eve (if you haven’t seen her blog, you should check it out, the link is in my blog-roll) and a few of her friends — and [...]

Today was test day. I got out of bed early and made my way over to class for the Wine & Spirits Educational Trust (WSET) Level 2 certification test — but not before the obligatory stop at Starbucks for some liquid comfort to get the day start right.  I arrived an hour early and sat [...]

Next week I’m set to take the WSET Level 2 certification test and today I’m spending the day studying everything from flavor characteristics to wine producing regions, the effects of the climate up through the production of Spirits. It’s a lot. One of the areas that I admit to be struggling with is the wine [...]

I’m so excited!  I took the plunge and signed up to take the WSET Level 2 course.  For those of you that don’t know (cause I didn’t!), it’s the Wine & Spirits Education Trust Level 2 course which ends in a test for level 2 certification. What does this mean?  Or what will this do [...]

As you know, wine is something that is really important to me.  I enjoy tasting it, I enjoy learning about it, I enjoy speaking about it and I enjoy discovering it.  Next month a local wine shop is hosting the WSET course – a 2 day course that prepares you to take the WSET certification [...]