For the most current wine reviews, click here.

For Epicurean Traveler ezine, click here

For wine news, click here
For wine resources, click here

If you're unsure why Epicurean Tasting Room is for you, read on, and learn how Epicurean Tasting Room will enhance your wine experience and save you money!

Scott's pick for Value Wine of the Month

Scott's pick for Red and White Wines of the Month

EPICUREAN TASTING ROOM is the wine section of our downloadable e-zine. It's more than a wine magazine and tasting guide. It's a service.

How many times have you found yourself staring at a winelist, dumbstruck by the prices and feeling like a fool? It's no wonder wine is intimidating to most people. As the host, it's the only "food" you have to order for the whole table. Your guests are relying on your expertise. Your reputation is on the line. When that bottle is popped, you're either going to look like a sophisticate or a bumpkin. We've all been there at one time or another. Worst of all, when it's at a restaurant, it's costing you a small fortune - two to three times retail! Many people will play it safe by ordering one of the most expensive bottles. In fact, I know a restaurateur who lowered the markup on wine, only to have wine sales decline. Why? Perceived value. If it's expensive it must be good. The fact of the matter is that every week our panel finds inexpensive wines that out perform their more expensive counterparts. That's real value.

This is where the wine critic can provide an invaluable service. A good wine critic can save you a bundle. And while a knowledgable critic can add to your understanding of wine, you may be surprised to learn that a good critic doesn't even have to know much about his or her subject to be effective. All that is required of a critic is that he or she be consistent. I know one wine writer (who will remain anonymous) whose tastes are admirably consistent - anything he likes, I know I'll dislike. And that's not a criticism. A wine critic, after all, is no different than a movie critic. You'll find a few with whom you agree more than others. These are the critics you should trust and whose recommendations you can rely on.

The Epicurean Tasting Panel has been a model of consistency since it's inception in 1996. In each issue of EPICUREAN TASTING ROOM we rate more than 125 wines, more than 1,000 wines a year (of the more than 2,000 we taste), ferreting out the best quality, as well as the best bargains of the new releases. You will not find any truly negative reviews - there are so many good wines to recommend we don't waste our time, or yours, with negative reviews. [Read about what the ratings really mean]

As I said before, you have to find a critic who agrees with your personal tastes. Nobody can tell you that your tastes are wrong. Only you can know what your tastebuds tell you, good, bad, or indifferent. Now, hopefully you'll find that our tastes coincide.

Who are we, and how do we taste?
The Epicurean Tasting Panel is comprised of myself, Scott Clemens, and a group of consumers like you, who buy everyday wines and come to the table with little or no knowledge of which wineries may or may not have a reputation. Furthermore, most of them have been been tasting together for several years, long enough to be immune to peer pressure. So you'll get an honest opinion.

I won't fool you, though - the ratings and the notes are solely my responsibility. I'm the resident "expert" - more about my qualifications later. Typically I taste the wines blind, spitting and making notes. Then I invite the panel in and listen to their comments and preferences as they taste (they don't spit), taking a second look at the wines myself. It gives me a good grounding in what the average consumer is looking for in a wine.

There's also another good reason to taste with a panel. I was a founding member of the Bon Appetit Magazine Tasting Panel, a group of 8 wine professionals who tasted 40 wines every Wednesday morning for a decade. Tasting with the same panel for a long period of time allows you to rely on each member's strengths. Each panelist has a different threshold tolerance for certain faults in a wine. I'm particularly sensitive to corked wines, ethyl acetate, and bretanomyces, but I'm relatively insensitive to high levels of sulphur dioxide and moderate levels of volatile acidity. So it's important to listen to the complaints of fellow panelists.

Why should you trust my judgement?
Now, I've already told you that your taste is paramount, so why should you rely on my expertise, and what are my credentials? Like most of my colleagues, I'm a reluctant expert. No matter how much you know about the subject, you can never know it all. Nonetheless, I've spent over 30 years in the wine business, working for domestic wine companies and wine importers, working in the cellar, writing over 500 articles and more than 13,000 published wine reviews. I've judged numerous national and international wine and spirits competitions, and traveled extensively throughout many of the world's winegrowing regions, including Argentina, Australia, California, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. I've been a newspaper wine columnist, Special Reports Editor for Vintage magazine, Tastings Editor of Wine & Spirits magazine, Contributing Editor to Wine Country, Managing Editor of The Food & Beverage Journal, and Editor/Publisher of EPICUREAN magazine. Perhaps more to the point, I've critically tasted more than 50,000 wines over my career, so I know what a particular wine is supposed to taste like, and how that wine stacks up within its category.

It's not just tasting notes!
While wine ratings and tasting notes remain at the core of EPICUREAN TASTING ROOM, we also offer informative articles about the world of wine from experts around the world. EPICUREAN TASTING ROOM explores wineries, wine history, and the people behind the wines, as well as commentary on emerging trends and regions.

And unlike other online magazines, once you download an issue of EPICUREAN TASTING ROOM, you'll be in for a visual treat, as well. I'm in love with photo illustration. My photographs have graced the covers of wine books, more than three dozen magazines and countless interior pages, and I must say that I prefer the look of photographs on my laptop more than on the printed page. The colors jump out; the photos seem almost three-dimensional.

I want to pass on to you my passion for wine. It's more than just a beverage - it's a fascinating, multi-disciplinary subject, integrating history, biography, viticulture, botany, geography, geology, micro-meteorology, chemistry, sensuality and human endeavor. It's part science, part art, and it engages the senses. It's also just plain fun!

How much will all of this cost you? Not one red cent! Nada. Zip. (Although you might mention me in your will).

Now, if you'd like to see what I'm talking about, scroll to the top of the page to access back issues of Epicurean Tasting Room and Epicurean Traveler.