J Vineyards & Winery

A Gal Who Loves Wine and Fun... The NSI quiz has always meant to be short, sweet, informative and fun. Why? Maybe it's me, but I've never understood the appeal of most food and wine sites, with their eye glazing recipes and tasting notes or their fab experience talking terroir in some grape field. Informative? [...]

By | January 26th, 2021|Sonoma Wineries|Comments Off on J Vineyards & Winery

CinCin Ristorante & Bar

Always Up For An Anniversary… A quick peruse of this website will reveal that the Insider is always up for a great meal, party or anniversary. So when I got an invite in my email to celebrate a Vancouver landmark restaurant, CinCin’s 30th anniversary with a terrific 3 courses for $30 offering I couldn’t walk [...]

By | December 28th, 2020|David's Travels|Comments Off on CinCin Ristorante & Bar

Vintners Resort

20 Years and Counting... PERCY BRANDON Vintners Resort offers one of the more special places to stay and dine in Sonoma County. It has an in house spa, wine country tours and a fine dining restaurant in John Ash & Co. Considering all of the amenities Vintners offers, perhaps it's no surprise that its General [...]

By | November 27th, 2020|Sonoma Eateries, Sonoma Stays|Comments Off on Vintners Resort

Auberge du Soleil

Inspires Loyalty... Sommeliers are notorious for not staying with an establishment for no more than five years at the most. Even if they're wildly happy with a place, it just seems to be the nature of the beast that wine people move on. So it was a pleasant surprise when recently conversing with Elizabeth Cahill, [...]

By | October 31st, 2020|Napa Eateries, Napa Stays|Comments Off on Auberge du Soleil

Blowouts to Burgers

Canlis Pivot & Evolves... If you ever visit Seattle, there are certain things that most people do... a visit to the Space Needle (the restaurant for a tourist place is actually pretty good), a stroll thru Pike Place Market with maybe a stop across the street at the original Starbucks. If you like rock n' [...]

By | August 31st, 2020|David's Travels|Comments Off on Blowouts to Burgers

Happy Hour

Two of The Finest Words ... Happy hour. Aside from love you, are there two better words in the English language? I suppose you don’t need a specific hour to be happy, but there’s something about dropping into a bar or restaurant during happy hour and having a ball. Playwright Everything just lends itself to [...]

By | June 13th, 2020|David's Travels|Comments Off on Happy Hour

SOBEWFF 2020

Dinners, Burgers, Tastings .... SOBEWFF Well the 19th annual SOBEWFF  festival recently wrapped up and what a blast it was. The festival just keeps getting better and better. Festival kicked off with a nice media reception cocktail party where I got to say hello to Lee Schrager the man who dreamed up the festival many [...]

By | March 24th, 2020|David's Travels, Napa Wineries|Comments Off on SOBEWFF 2020