Valentine's Day is right around the corner which means lovers across the globe will be seeking out the right wine to romance their dates with for the evening. With this in mind, I bring you the IntoWine guide to Valentine's Day wine: First let's handle the issue of chocolate. Despite popular opinion, wine and chocolate are actually quite difficult to pair as either the sweetness of the chocolate overwhelms the wine or, in the case of sweet wines like Port or dessert wine, the sweetness of the wine overwhelms the chocolate. So what do you serve? I find champagne to be the ideal wine pairing for chocolate as it offers a distinct contrast to the sweet chocolate in both taste and texture. Plus the bubbles can only serve to enhance your Valentine's Day mood. My recommendation: Try the Taittinger "La Francaise" Brut Champagne . An authentic, quality champagne but, at approx $35, not so expensive you'll break the bank either. So what if you aren't seeking a wine to pair with chocolate and instead just want the right wine to sip by the fire while you romance your date? I have two suggestions for you:

Knowing how to cook pays off well throughout the year, but biggest win may come on Valentines day. First you get to avoid, expensive, overcrowded restaurants that frankly “dumb down” the food for the night, and second (and perhaps more important) you get the chance “to be excellent” in front of women. Of course the recipes and wines below can just as easily and expertly be prepared by the female cooks out there, but let’s face, it’s the guys that really need to step up on Valentines day. These are a few of my favorites as the food and wines are great, they are easy to prepare, and they are sure to impress. Hope you enjoy them!

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a San Diego Padres themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Padres fan? Although they are an expansion team, the San Diego Padres have always emphasized their connection to California history. The team takes its name from the Pacific Coast...

The Legal Drinking Age in the US Up and Coming Wine Regions Problems with Wine Distribution in the US The Influence of Wine Critics: Are Consumers Getting Better Info or Just More Info? Pros and Cons of Traditional Corks vs Alternative Closures What Does the Price of a Wine Tell You as a Consumer? Pros and Cons of Wine Points and Ratings Systems

People love lists; they can be a great source of education and discussion. But making a list such as this is not an easy process. Who are the most influential wine people in the U.S., and how exactly do you define ‘influential?’ Does influential mean people who move markets, impact consumers, inspire winemakers, and create debate? In a word, yes. These 100 people, from winemakers to law makers, bankers to bloggers, and sommeliers to celebrities are definitely people who influence wine; how it is made, marketed, perceived, sold, shipped, purchased and shared.

Santa Barbara wine pioneer Richard Sanford is among the inductees into the 2012 Vintners Hall of Fame. Sanford started one of the first modern wineries south of the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982 and for several decades, his Sanford Winery and Vineyards was the lone outpost in the now-sizzling Santa Rita Hills area of Santa Barbara County. He was the first winemaker to prove the potential for Pinot Noir in the Santa Rita Hills and spent the next 20 years making some of the best regarded Pinots from the region including bottlings from arguably his best vineyard, Rinconada. Sanford left his namesake winery in 2005 and founded Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards in Lompoc. What prompted you to pursue winemaking as a career? If not winemaking, what path would you have chosen? Upon returning from military service in Vietnam in 1968 I wanted to pursue an activity more connected with the land. During my tenure in the Navy I had been introduced to a wonderful Volnay by a fellow naval officer. That became my inspiration to pursue a career in agriculture and I chose winegrowing to attempt to duplicate the quality of that wine. After 40 years as a winegrower I cannot imagine any other path.

If there is one international name associated with Riesling it is Loosen. Ernst Loosen is the owner of Weingut Dr. Loosen, located in the Mosel wine region in Germany, a family winery dating back over 200 years. He has won accolades such as "Riesling of the Year" and “German Winemaker of the Year”, by the German wine press, and he was selected as "Man of the Year" by Decanter Magazine, and Wine & Spirits called him one of the “World’s 50 Most Influential Winemakers. In 1999 he launched a joint Riesling project with Chateau St. Michelle in Washington State, Eroica, which has helped ignite Riesling sales in the U.S. You actually were heading into the archeology field. What prompted you to pursue winemaking as a career? Well, I was studying archaeology at the University of Mainz, but I’m not so sure that I would ever have gone into it as a profession. At least, that’s what my brothers and sisters said when our father fell seriously ill and someone needed to take over the family wine estate. I was quite interested in Roman archaeology, especially since there is so much Roman history right here in the Mosel, but someone had to take on the winery or my mother was going to sell off the vineyards. My older siblings were already in careers, and the younger ones too young. So it was me or nobody. I certainly have no regrets, though. They were quite right that I really had no prospects in archaeology as a profession, and it was agreed that I would have full control of how the wine estate was managed. It had always been more of a hobby for my father and I wanted to do a better job with the great vineyards we had.

I live in San Francisco and January weather here means 50 degrees and rain. Constant bone-chilling rain, or so it seems. And before the rest of America emails to remind me how good I have it and how freaking cold it is in New York or Ohio or whatever other frozen tundra they call home, I'm just gonna say that when you are cold, you are cold, and comfort food -and comfort wine- goes a long way towards warming your heart when Old Man Winter starts to have his way with you. So with this in mind, I bring you two comfort wines you should go buy this week. Glenn Hawk Zinfandel - I typically don't gravitate to Zinfandel. I associate Zins with "cocktail wines", that is, wines that are delicious for a few sips of a single glass but can be a bit too fruity and overwhelming for those of us who tend towards enjoying multiple glasses. So I don't recommend many Zinfandels simply because I don't drink many of them. Every once in a while I stumble back down the Zinfandel path and am reminded of how good the varietal can be. I recently tried the 2009 Glenn Hawk Zinfandel from Livermore Valley (just south of Napa in the shadow of Mt. Diablo).

Wes Hagen assumed control of Clos Pepe Vineyards in Santa Barbara’s Santa Rita Hills in 1998, though it was first planted in 1994. This former English teacher brings an analytical and thoughtful approach to winemaking, specifically Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. He received his viticultural and winemaking training from the University of California at Davis extension program. His small lot production and strict allocation program have helped earn him 90+ point scores from Wine Spectator, Robert Parker and Decanter Magazine. What prompted you to pursue winemaking as a career? If not winemaking, would you still be teaching English? I was teaching college in Minnesota and it was very cold. I got a call from California that my Mom and Steve Pepe had purchased a horse ranch near Lompoc. I came back for Christmas, fell in love with the place, and left Minnesota immediately for the Pinot Promised Land.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a New York Giants themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Giants fan? The year was 1925. Five teams asked to join the National Football League, bringing the total number of teams in the organization to 23. Only one of those five teams, the New York Giants, is still active in the NFL. The Giants' first owner, Tim Mara, paid $500 for the team; today, according to Forbes.com , the New York Giants are worth approximately $1.3 billion dollars – a nice return on investment, even by New York standards.