December, what do we do with you? So full of merriment, yet so manic. Emotions bubble to the surface like corks, dredging up memories of past joys, pains, laughter and tears just in time for you to tie a nice bow around them all and start anew in January. And what better tumultuous time of year to give yourself a kick in the pants and try something new, like ice wine? Contrary to what you might think, ice wine is not a Cabernet Sauvignon-flavored popsicle (although, that’s a great idea….)

Continuing our Italian Sparkling wine Journeys (just in time for the holidays), we will continue to head east thru northern Italy. You may recall we started in Piemonte with Asti Spumante and Moscato d’Asti. Then traveled east thru Lombardia and their sparkler, Franciacorta. Continuing on east of Lombardia is the Veneto, home to some world class red and white wines and perhaps the best sparkling wine value (along with Cava from Spain) available on store shelves. I am talking, of course, about Prosecco .

When veteran winemaker Steve MacRostie went looking for a new vineyard to plant his chardonnay, pinot noir and syrah he discovered Wildcat Mountain in the Carneros/Sonoma region. "I felt Wildcat would push the envelope, something untried. The cooler climates, the stressful site, the thinner soils; this is not a safe place to set up a farming operation. In a business sense it was probably rather stupid," he said plainly.

It’s a common Silicon Valley dream. The analytical person who catches the wine bug early in life and can’t wait for the day when they can focus their passion away from algorithms and code and towards winemaking. Rick Moshin is living that Silicon Valley dream. A former mathematician, Moshin entered the wine business gradually, working weekends at first, then learning the ropes working with some of the finest winemakers in Sonoma. He bought his first lot of vines in 1989 and in 2005 celebrated his first crush along with the launch of his 30 year old dream, Moshin Vineyards and Winery . IntoWine recently caught up with Rick to discuss his evolution from mathematician to winemaker and hear first hand what is an inspiring story of persistence and passion.

“It’s difficult to export wine because we drink a lot” is the response I got when asking why Swiss wine does not exist on the international market. Switzerland, a tiny independent country in the heart of Europe with a population of 7.5 million, is divided further by languages; French, Italian, German, and Romanche.

In recent years there has been a lot of controversy about decanting. Do you decant everything or just older wines? Recently, seven wine experts weighed in on the subject and offered the current consensus, which is still very polarized.

The practice of opening a bottle of wine an hour before enjoying it to let it breathe amuses many wine experts. “How much air can get into the bottle?” asks Amy Reiley, author and wine expert. “Really you just give your arm a rest after before you drink it.” Letting a wine breathe in its own bottle won’t help improve the wine’s palatability. What the wine may need is more oxygen in order to age a big, young red. “To have contact with O2, more surface area has to be in contact with the wine. A decanter has the widest possible surface area. It is less vertical and spreads out horizontally. The O2 permeates the outer skin of the wine as thin as an inch, aiding it along, opening up the wine,” says Tyler Wesslund, wine director of Canoe in Atlanta.

He's been named as one of the “fifty most influential people in the wine world" by Decanter Magazine . Bartholomew Broadbent The company he founded was nominated "Importer of the Year for 2005" by Wine Enthusiast . Prior to launching his own firm, he worked for a "Who's Who" list of the world's elite wine establishments with names like Harrod’s, Harvey’s Fine Wine Merchants, and Christie’s in London, the Rothbury Estate and Yalumba Winery in Australia, Hennessy and L’Academie du Vin in France, and Schenley in Canada, gracing his resumé. His work in Canada even resulted in the Canadian press labeling him the "Wayne Gretzky of Wine". He's widely considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on Port and Madeira. He's also credited for the growth of North American Port consumption during the mid 1980’s and was responsible for the re-introduction of Madeira to North America in 1989.

A Proud History Spain’s most famous wine region has been producing wine since at least the 9th century. Because monastic communities throughout Europe made wines and other products to sell, Spanish monks were Rioja’s first large-scale wine producers. As early as the 17th century, Rioja’s local winemakers began to work together, establishing the Royal Economic Society of Rioja Winegrowers to promote their interests. This tradition continues today with the Control Board of the Rioja Designation of Origin, the governing body of Rioja’s Denominacíon de Origen Calificada (DOCa).

Italy makes a wide variety of sparkling wines that are wonderful values and great tasting wines suitable for the holidays. In the last article, we discussed the sparkling wines of Asti in the Piemonte ( Moscato d’Asti and Asti Spumante). I would like to continue to explore the sparkling wines of Italy. The first region one encounters when heading east from the Piemonte is the region of Lombardia.