Of all the splendid places you'll find as you travel through New England, Westport Rivers Vineyard and Winery in Westport, MA may surprise you most. The winery experience is delightful in itself, marked by a ton of outdoor character and of course Mao the winery cat roaming freely about the grounds and through the tasting room. Sparkling wine is a point of pride here, making them unique even among the already-unique world of Massachusetts wine.
Read moreHow to get a second date with Kathleen: Know how to pronounce the wine you're ordering
He attempted to tell the waitress what he wanted. She couldn’t understand him and looked at me for help. I also couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. He said it again. This continued with increasingly bungled pronunciations until finally he just had to point it out on the menu. He wanted a Cabernet Sauvignon.
Read moreAboard the vintage Douglas DC-3 airplane, recalling travel from an era of suits and fancy hats
Ambling up those stairs into the cabin, it's not tough for the mind's eye to conjure men in suits and ladies in fancy hats finding their seats and drawing their curtains, reading their newspapers and smoking their cigarettes in the soft light of each lamp. Hat racks hang above the original seats, which are unbelievably far more narrow than the confines we now "enjoy", for passengers were a bit more svelte in those days. A buffet in the aft part of the cabin served hot meals (and, dare we ask, wine?) alongside fine china and silver.
Read moreUrban Wineries add their own city terroir to the evolving landscape of American wine
Urban wineries have been getting more attention lately. Deservedly so. Once a bizarre oddity in city landscapes known for brewing beer, creative winemakers are cultivating America's taste for wine as they open up shop and move some combination of their crushing, blending, aging, bottling, and tasting into warehouses and storefronts across the nation's great cities. These wineries seem to be situated at the intersection of two trends. The first is the revitalization of America's cities as the young, affluent, and highly educated continue to congregate around urban cores. The second is America's growing wine consumption.
Read moreChimichurri Grill in New York is one of our favorite restaurants anywhere
At the corner of 43rd Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan, in Hell's Kitchen just west enough of Times Square to make it reasonable, sits an extraordinary restaurant called Chimichurri Grill. Stunning food and wine, warm-from-the-very-first-moment hospitality from our friends Carlos and Wilmer, and charmingly intimate spaces have made Chimichurri Grill one of our favorite places in New York City, and easily one of our top five restaurants anywhere.
Read moreRonald Reagan Washington National Airport, one of America's best, celebrates 75 years of history
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport - better known to locals simply as "National Airport" or "National" - celebrated 75 years this week since its opening on June 16, 1941. We've been thrilled by this not just because National (IATA code "DCA") is quite literally in our back yard (we watch planes land from our dining room), but also because we're proud of the truly outstanding airport we have right here at home in Arlington, VA.
Read moreBrooklyn Oenology: City winemaking with splendid sense of place
Located in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Oenology (BOE) espouses a profound devotion to the sense of place wrapped up in the wine they produce. Alie and her team have really captured the essence of their unique place through exclusive use of grapes grown throughout the state of New York (you'll be hard pressed to find a vineyard in the city), inclusion of New York spirits in their tasting room, and the incredible local artwork that decorates the label of every bottle.
Read moreTumi Alpha Bravo Brooks Slim Brief: Excellent travel workbag with room for a bottle of wine
Imagine my excitement when I discovered the Tumi Alpha Bravo Brooks Slim Brief, a sturdy, classy laptop bag that manages to hold all of the things pictured here... including a bottle of wine one might be taking on the train or to join a friend after work.
Read morePlane vs Train decision for the savvy traveler
Unless you’re explicitly seeking the long-haul train experience, Amtrak is most useful in getting from one city to another "near" city, i.e. any combination of cities between Washington and New York, any similar combination of cities between New York and Boston, and other combinations such as St. Louis and Kansas City (a ride that I love!). We recommend you make your decision for individual trips based on a combination of total cost, total travel time, convenience, and the rather intangible "experience" factor.
Read moreBlending wine, whisky, and music at downtown Nashville City Winery
We're visiting Nashville City Winery as part of our ongoing look at the larger trend of urban winemaking in the United States. Nashville City Winery is part of a growing trend of American “urban winemaking”. We absolutely loved the fusion of music venue and winery in a way that feels exactly as it should: modern yet authentic, big yet cozy.
Read morePassionate winemaking yields stunning results for Willamette Valley's Eisold Smith Wines
We recently shared some glasses with Adam Eisold and Lauren Smith of Eisold Smith Wines, located in McMinnville and Carlton, Oregon in the famed Willamette Valley. They're not only a wonderful pair of people, but their craft most certainly lives up to their idea of "lovingly crafted Oregon wines". They are some of the most passionate winemakers we know, and it shows in their relatively limited production lineup.
Read moreDemystifying reward travel for "Traditional Miles" American, Delta, United, and Alaska Airlines
Frequent-flier rewards programs generally fall into one of two categories, each suited to a different type of traveler. Knowing which to favor based on the type of traveler you are will help you get the most from your airline rewards, and actually use them faster! In today's post we're tackling the Traditional Miles (+Perks) model that makes the American, Delta, United, and Alaska Airlines particularly attractive for very frequent travelers, but perhaps less enticing for more casual leisure travelers.
Read moreBest of May: Tradition and revolution in the month's best bottles of wine and cider
Tradition and revolution reign in our Best of May tasting lineup. We're showcasing our favorites from the past month, which felt cooler than usual here in the northeast United States, and thus kept us drinking more reds longer than we have in past years.
Read moreMay TGIflyday take you to a place you love, a great bottle of wine, and a moment to remember
Today begins a long Memorial Day weekend in the United States. This is what we see: Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We hope you'll use this TGIflyday to get to a place you love, share a great bottle of wine, enjoy the weekend, and make time to remember the fallen in some meaningful way!
Read moreCelebrating National Wine Day with six of our wine favorites from a (thus far) great year
Happy National Wine Day! It's true, we struggle distinguishing May 25 from National Drink Wine Day (celebrated annually on February 18), but we don't like questioning an opportunity to try great wine. We're rolling with it. To celebrate, we've decided share a lineup of six greatest hits over the last year, a "Best of Wine:Thirty Flight", so to speak.
Read moreThe Nomad life: Keeping charged on the go (for pictures of planes and directions to wineries)
We're no longer the people in the airport or on the train scrambling for every drop of power to keep our devices going through the day. For this we thank Nomad, whose brilliantly well thought out gadgets have kept us charged, sane, and looking like we know what we're doing for a couple years now. we've found that these accessories really will transform one of the more stressful aspects of your travel routine, and of course give you a lot more juice to take pictures, get directions, find the best wine bar, and tell the world all about it.
Read moreAmigoni Urban Winery in downtown Kansas City, MO is serious about making great wine
Amigoni Urban Winery, located in the historic Daily Drover Telegram Newspaper building in the Stockyards District of the West Bottoms, is next up in our ongoing series investigating some of America's urban wineries. Sourcing about 75% of grapes locally in the Kansas City area, including many from the small Amigoni Vineyard about 30 miles to the east, they is serious about making great wine, and have built a tasting experience befitting this dedication.
Read moreTravel further for less (or no) money by smartly earning and using credit card points
We're directly addressing the notion of smartly using credit card points to travel further for less money. Wine:Thirty Flight flies often with little or no cash spent on tickets. We do this by following three simple rules: Use your credit card(s) to cover as many of your daily expenses as possible, always earn more than one point per dollar spent, and use the points you earn to book free airline tickets.
Read moreBrandborg Vineyard and Winery: Great Pinot Noir and other wines from Oregon's Umpqua Valley
The Brandborg Vineyard and Winery in the tiny town of Elkton, OR specializes in Pinot Noir and a lineup of other stunners whose food pairings we've shared along with our notes. We were fascinated by the incredible wine coming out of such a relatively small vineyard: they have five acres planted out of sixty that are growable.
Read moreHouse (Wine) Hunters: Transitioning to refreshing summer whites and lighter reds!
Thought it may not seem so in some parts of the United States today, May is halfway through, which means we're in the transition from red wines that go with heavier food in winter, to lighter refreshing white wine options to take us through spring and summer. Today we've one white recommendation alongside two lighter reds.
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