USE A PROGRESSIVE WINE LIST TO PLEASE THE PALATES OF PARTY MEMBERS Sommeliers and chefs thrive on matching food and wine at their wineries and restaurants, but individual wine enthusiasts can take the same pleasure when entertaining. Providing pairings at parties can be great fun!

Let’s say you’re up for a trip to wine country, and you’re thinking you’ll go to the quintessential wine growing region, the Napa Valley. But then you think about it for a minute and realize that such a trip would not be convenient, because you’re not in California -- you’re in New South Wales. Australia. You know you’re near great wine country, and you still want to satisfy that tasting-day urge, but you don’t know where to start. What’s a wine lover to do?

I step out of the “working van,” as our tasting guide, Nathalie Müller, parks next to rows and rows of grapevines. My husband and friends clamber down and inhale the clean air. High above the town of Leimen, I can see the grapevines stretching across the hills. Ms. Müller grabs a plastic crate of wine bottles and offers us each a wine glass. Deftly, she opens a bottle and pours 2006 Leimener Kreuzweg Auxerrois dry Kabinett into our glasses.

I’ve turned the Calendar to November, and when I look out and see frost on the rooftops, I know it’s time to think about the Holidays. No matter how we celebrate, as it gets darker, our hearts get warmer, and we gather friends and family close. Nowadays, family can mean the one in which you were raised, or your chosen “urban family”. After Thanksgiving, the next holiday is Hanukkah, the Celebration of Light.

Our first visit to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the summer home of the popes in the fourteenth century, was on a gray December day. We had just driven up from Nice for a visit to the vineyard areas of the southern Rhone Valley. We were hungry and decided to have lunch in Chateauneuf because of its location just off the Autoroute. We planned to have lunch at La Mule des Papes in the middle of the village, but the menu looked too pedestrian so we looked around. We found a tiny place, La Garbure, just up the hill from the village square.

As the holidays approach many people are looking for a sparkling wine to serve at intimate dinners and large parties. The region of Piemonte produces two that should be on your list: Asti Spumante and Moscato d’Asti. The area called the Piemonte is at the foot of the Alps in the northwest corner of Italy. This region produces many other wines including dry reds and whites and also some sparkling wines. For a more detailed history of the area please see the first part of my three part series on Barolo, the Piemonte’s most famous wine.

Any regular readers of this column know that my wife, Emily, is pregnant with our first child. Upon hearing this news in June, I promptly began preparing to lay down a case of wine to enjoy with my unborn son 25 years down the road. Two months ago , I wrote about the process of aging wine – how to select it, where to store it, when to drink it, and so forth. Last month I delved into the all-important question of which wines are worth aging by cataloguing five of the wine categories that made their way into the mixed case I put together. This column finishes that project by reporting on the four remaining categories of wine I’ve chosen for my son’s case. In so doing, hopefully I’ll lend some help to others who are searching for wines to put away for a special occasion.

Wild Horse seems a fitting name for a winery located near Paso Robles, and one who, for 25 years has sought to create unique and compelling wines from the Central Coast. One of the things that makes Wild Horse Winery different, located just south of Paso Robles, in Templeton, is that they source fruit from 16 diverse AVA’s in California, including some of the smallest and largest appellations in the state.

Holiday season lurks on the horizon, so what better time to dig into pairing chocolate with Port? Both evoke images of light snow falling, family get-togethers, and a slow warmth that slides down your throat, pools into your toes, and meanders back up again to give you a heady delight. To best equip you to ooze into that proverbial puddle in the yummiest way possible, here is some sage advice from Anton Hicks, my new best friend and Managing Partner of Nectar Wine Lounge , a gem of a spot in San Francisco’s Marina district.

The Loire Valley wine region often takes a backseat to its famous native neighbours when discussing French wines. Outside of France, wine lovers often opt for a classic white Burgundy, or a prestigious red Bordeaux, even a Cote du Rhone is more likely to show up on your dinner table. However, Val de Loire (as it’s called in France) will not stay quiet much longer. The region is taking matters into its own hands in efforts to educate consumers and promote Loire Valley wines as a whole as well as individually in order to build a reputation of diversity and quality.