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Come for the wine, stay for the salumi: Quartino Wine Bar (The Colony, TX)
Fresh-baked bread, artisan pork products, and Italian wine by the liter! If any of those things are calling your name, head on over to Quartino Ristorante & Wine Bar in the Colony. The Chicago-based Gibsons Restaurant Group opened their first Texas location in 2023. It’s since become a popular spot in the “Grotto District” of…
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Wine isn’t dead (and neither are business cards!)
It’s admittedly not the most earth-shaking news, but…The Wine Fairy has business cards. Oh boy! We’re in business now! (Actually, we’re not in business–we’re just deeper in hobby.) To my mind, carrying actual printed business cards means that this blog project is officially up and running. I got these cards for when I’m out on…
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Texas wines and good times at Salado Winery Co. (Salado, TX)
Texas country highways in the springtime are idyllic, all blankets of wildflowers and baby cows. The April rains have made the grass tall and green. The smell of hickory and mesquite smoke hovers faintly in the air. And if you tire of the ever-thickening traffic as you pass through growing cities like Temple and Waco,…
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DFW Wine Events: May 2025
The weather is perfect and the calendar is lively in Dallas this spring. Wine lovers, let’s get out there, discover new pours and make new friends! Every month at The Wine Fairy, we assemble a list of 10 (or so) local happenings you won’t want to miss. From wine dinners to educational classes to outdoor…
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Travelin’ the Grapevine Spring Wine Trail (Grapevine, TX)
Wine Fairy here, reporting from the 2025 Spring Wine Trail in Grapevine, Texas! The 33rd annual festival took place on Saturday, April 12. The sky was Easter-egg blue and it was in the low 60s all morning (cellar temp)! It could not have been a lovelier day to explore Grapevine’s downtown wineries on foot. Here,…
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Texas Wine News Roundup: Spring 2025
If you’re tired of doom-scrolling, have you tried wine-scrolling? That’s when you try not to consume any news unless it’s related to wine. I have been wine-scrolling most of this year. I set up my devices to take me directly to wine content, instead of regular economic and political news. Sure, I’m less informed–but much…
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Wine and Turkey Legs: The Wine Fairy’s Guide to Scarborough Faire
Hear ye, hear ye, winos of North Texas! April 5-6 was the opening weekend for our own Renaissance festival, Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie, Texas. The Wine Fairy was there, tasting (almost) all the wines so I could report back to you. (Aye…’tis a tough job.) Scarborough Faire (a.k.a. Scarborough Renaissance Festival) has more than 15…
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Total buzzkill: Total Wine’s rewards program devalues its best perk
It’s dark days in Dallas, y’all. First, we gave away Luka Dončić to the freakin’ Lakers. Then, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines started charging for bags. Now–because crappy things come in threes–our largest and best chain liquor store appears to be seriously scaling back their rewards program. Will the disappointments never end? Just a couple of months…
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A Pinot Comparison (Saturday Tasting at Blind Bishop)
Pinot is loved for its versatility, and that chameleonic quality was on display at Saturday’s themed wine tasting at Blind Bishop in Dallas. We tried six different expressions of Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio/Gris. It was the first summery day of the season, and wine lovers streamed into the sun-filled tasting room. Two gentleman pourers…
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Mixing it up with Clos du Val’s blending seminar
It was a fab Cab lab at The Wine Authority this past Saturday. Napa Valley’s Clos du Val was in the house with barrel samples from the 2023 vintage–and one very special finished wine, the 2021 Yettalil blend ($200 retail). I booked the blending seminar for “educational” purposes. My wife (and fellow Cab lover) Sarah…
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My WSET Level 3 study diary: How it’s going so far
It’s back to school time! Some of y’all may know that I’m currently working my way through the WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) certifications. So, in between all the bottle reviews and local wine topics, I thought I’d share a little bit about how that’s going so far. I took the Level 2 Award…
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How to taste great wine (for less than $5000)
There’s a winery in Napa that now has a $5000 per person tasting fee, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in February 2025. The culprit is Ghost Horse, the same attention-hungry winemaker that is preparing to release a $25,000 bottle of Cabernet. I’m all for people doing whatever they want with their money. But I think…