By Leticia Borges. If you’ve ever watched American Idol you would know the concept of a blind spot is alive and well. Many contestants are great. We won’t take that away from them. Many others are bad and they know it but don’t care. The group that intrigues me the most are the people who live in
By Leticia Borges. The way in which the French approach wine is complicated. If all you want is a nice wine to go with your lovely meal, why does it feel like you must memorize the lineage of every Chateau in Bordeaux dating back to 1389? A normmelier trying to find a bottle of French wine shouldn’t
By Leticia Borges. Answer: Probably. Everyone has a theory about wine glasses. What is the right glass for a Pinot Noir? Can I use the same glass for Cabernet Sauvignon? How many glass shapes and sizes do I need? Does the glass really make a difference? I always thought the glass debate was a crafty way to
By Leticia Borges. Wine is always welcome. If you bring a great bottle of wine to a party, the host will hide it until all the guests are gone. If you bring a half decent bottle, the drunks will gladly indulge. If you miss the mark entirely and bring a wine that sucks lime, the cook will
By Leticia Borges. Every Borges family celebration I can remember involved a cork popping. To this day, that sound still makes me smile. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and engagements were occasions to cheer, but our family finances restricted us to beverages we could afford. That’s where Spanish sparkling cider came into play. We could always count on that
By Leticia Borges. There’s much to be said about big wineries that produce massive amounts of wine per year. Unfortunately, not all of it is good. Small production wineries may lack the big brand names but often produce much better wine. The problem is that they also lack the massive marketing machinery to get their wines out there
By Leticia Borges. I strongly believe that no one can force you to like a wine you dislike. The notion that someone can say a few magic wine words and make you enjoy a wine you hated two minutes ago is improbable. If Robert Parker showed up at your doorstep with a dreadful bottle he rated 100, would
By Leticia Borges. Wine is fermented grape juice. No surprises there. So why would anyone allow grape juice to spoil, on purpose, in order to drink it? I’ve always wondered what was going through that guy’s mind when he first came up with the idea. When he saw the warm bubbly foul smelling mulch, what made him take
By Leticia Borges. Growing up in a small town in Puerto Rico to a middle class family meant that wine was as foreign concept. Only two things brought wine into our daily lives; my dad’s daily two ounces of sherry before dinner and my mom’s attempts to kill every neighbor by pouring them the stale wine that had
By Leticia Borges. You just got promoted. To celebrate, you book a reservation at a nice restaurant and invite your better half. This night is just for the two of you. No kids. No curfew. No worries. You’re led to your table and the hostess drops a 300-page wine menu in front of you. Three minutes later the
