San Francisco may be home to more wine enthusiasts than any other city in the U.S.. Stop in nearly any San Francisco wine bar and you are likely to find an outstanding wine list, a knowledgeable staff, and a clientele that knows its wine. CAV Wine Bar is one of the most unique wine bars in San Francisco as it focuses -not strictly on the obvious California wines up the road in Napa and Sonoma- but on wines from all over the globe. Nestled conveniently next door to Zuni (a beacon for San Francisco foodies), CAV is both central to locals and easily navigable for tourists seeking a real California wine bar experience (Market Street, where CAV resides, is San Francisco's main artery). IntoWine recently had the pleasure of talking wine and Mets baseball with CAV Co-Owner and Wine Director Pamela Busch.

I’m walking through a valley filled with wild herbs—rosemary, thyme, lavender and artemisia. Off in the distance, I can see a hill-side vineyard bursting with grapes and an ancient stone house. Next to the house, I notice people congregated near an old barn. I walk closer. When I arrive, a glass of wine is placed in my hand. I inhale and the aroma of the valley fills my senses. Then, I smile and take a sip. Deep, dark fruit quickly coats my palate. I look to the madame pouring the wine. “Welcome to the Languedoc,” she says. “We've been waiting for you.”

“Trying to describe places by sculpting liquid is a fascinating job.” - Stéphane Derenoncourt Perhaps it takes Stéphane Derenoncourt, one of the many French winemakers in Spain, to put the Spanish situation in perspective. Historically, Spain was a country of prohibitions and Civil War and their wines were often rustic, coarse and alcoholic. But Spain has changed, and so have the wines. Whatever the catalyst, the Spanish wine revolution grows stronger each day.

Driving on Highway 101, between the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria in Santa Barbara wine country, you pass by rolling hills punctuated by oak trees, sedate cattle and a sea of vineyards, like the ones off Cat Canyon and Kendall Jackson's 1,600 acres. You also pass by Los Alamos, an old western town founded in 1876 that still doesn't have its own grocery store.

Joining a club is sort of like joining a gym only you don’t have to drink wine every single day to feel like you’re getting your moneys worth. Or maybe it’s not like joining a gym at all but just an excuse to feel extra special. And these days there aint no half steppin’ when it comes to committing to a wine club. If you dig all the wines from a certain producer than more then likely you’ll dig the club. Ya dig?

While shopping for wine way back in my early, overly enthusiastic days, I would commonly hear knowledgeable shopkeepers say lines akin to, “Oh, it’s relatively young now. So if you can’t wait, decant it for a couple of hours and it should be great.” Once I heard this, I took note and committed it to memory.

There are few people who have thought harder or more comprehensively about where the French wine industry has been and where it is heading than author Andrew Jefford. In his book, The New France , Jefford delves deep into seemingly every angle of importance regarding French wine. The reviews have been uniformly exceptional.

While no match for the fickle flip of fashion rags like Vogue, nevertheless, wine publications have a tendency to declare a new “wine darling” seemingly every year. From Gruner Veltliner to the rebirth of Riesling, or the rise of Spain to the fall of Australia, wine fashions ebb and flow with the tide of sommelier fancy and corporate marketing. For the last few months, I’ve been noting that more and more publications have been talking about Greece. So, when the “All About Greek Wines” tour (sponsored by thirty-one producers to promote Greek wines in North America) came to San Francisco in April, the time seemed ripe to check out what the latest media starlet had to offer.

I've been living in Napa Valley for two full months now and many things have changed in my life since I first arrived. For example, the first thing that now pops into my head when I see the letters "NV" is no longer "Non-Vintage."

“Tell us what we should be tasting,” asked a group of four on vacation from Ohio. (The Russian River Valley, it turns out, seems to be a popular vacation destination for Ohio residents. We get handfuls of ‘em every week.) “Well…let me ask you this: What do YOU taste?” While I am genuinely interested and curious, I also wonder - who am I to tell them what they taste? I don’t have any clue what kinds of flavors their taste buds register. For the next 10 minutes – this group of Ohioans engaged in a somewhat spirited debate about the wine.