In the maybe-not-such-strange-bedfellows sweepstakes, wine shops that are also wine bars with food are lately the darlings of city redevelopment folks all over Southern California. And it's hard to argue with the sense that they're just the thing to lure suburbanites back to revitalized "old town" centers.

Here's another gorgeous Satellite Pic, this time of the Craggy Range Winery's Giant's Winery located in Hawke's Bay's Tukituki Valley. This photo was sent in by a fellow who knows a bit or two about wine...and clearly about beautiful settings...

In the northern Rhône, some of the best-known wineries are right in town. In Burgundy and Bordeaux, even in the southern Rhône, most of the wines are made in village or rural settings. But in Tain-l'Hermitage, such famous names as 1 and 1 built their wineries smack in the middle of houses and offices...

Posted by Bruce L.: I just received a gift of the Waring Pro Wine Chiller--it's supposed to have different temp. settings for different kinds of wines. Anyone have any experience with this gadget? Thanks, Bruce...

The best way to learn how wines age is to drink older wines. Sure, you can trust the opinions of others who have experience with mature wines. But there's nothing like firsthand knowledge. Every year I taste hundreds of aged wines in various settings...

After Carmel, I turned east and headed to the northern heartland of Israeli winemaking—the Galilee region and the Golan Heights. Along the way, I visited wineries in various settings, from industrial facilities, to those stylized to match the Mediterranean feel of the land, to those in converted agricultural support buildings...

. The international symbol for medicine, otherwise known as Caduceus is a sword with a snake wound round it. You may not know this but the sword is in fact a lance and the snake is a worm. In more rural settings, the method of getting rid of parasites is to lance the skin...

... for commercial, retail, hospitality, and residential applications in standard and custom settings...

A recent visit to Oak Knoll Winery was a real eye-opener; not only about the winery itself, but also about Oregon’s wine industry, in general. (Now I know why Robert Brittan, formerly of Stags’ Leap Winery, is currently dividing his time between Napa and Oregon.) Having personally worked in day-to-day settings in Sonoma County, Napa Valley...

We've just come through the holiday season, a time when more wine than usual is opened and poured for guests. Especially in more formal settings, one is often faced with that vexing bit of pomp and circumstance known as decanting. Writer Donald A. Dibbern Jr. addresses decanting: the how and the why...