Christy Canterbury cares less adjectives than evidence.

So when she was preparing for the Master of Wine examination, she built a tasting grid with twenty checkpoints: color, aroma, oak influence, alcohol, tannin texture, balance, length, complexity. For every wine, she wrote down only what she could prove.

“It’s almost like being a detective,” she said. “What can I tell from what’s in the glass?”

That mindset still shapes how she tastes wine today….

On New Year’s Eve in Midtown Manhattan, the kind of old money dining room that still believes in jackets and ceremony served a foie gras terrine with pumpernickel and the quiet confidence of an institution that has survived its own reinventions. The restaurant sits in the Seagram Building, in the footprint of what was once the Four Seasons,…

At three-Michelin-star Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan, the wine list is as storied as the dining room. For Wine Director Adam Waddell, the job isn’t just about curating bottles; it’s about orchestrating emotion, memory and discovery — often in fewer glasses than before.

Waddell, who took over the program in 2025 after joining the restaurant as associate wine director in 2023,…

Justin Herbinet of New York’s National Arts Club shares his philosophy for pairing wines with Thanksgiving dinner — and reminds us that gratitude pairs best with the bottles you already love.

The dining room at the National Arts Club glows with the amber light of late afternoon. Stemware catches the sun from Gramercy Park as Justin Herbinet circles a table,…

Exploring the spirit of wine from Sebastopol’s fog-kissed coastal hills

If you’ve ever cruised down Burnside Road just west of downtown Sebastopol, passing sheep-dotted pastures and groves of redwood and eucalyptus, you’ve already begun to experience the quiet mystique of Halleck Vineyard. In a recent episode of Wine Talks with Paul K, Ross Halleck—founder of Halleck Vineyard Estate Winery &…

Last week, I ventured from Halleck Vineyard Winery and Wine Tasting Room in Sonoma to the Sculptor Garden Room of the historic National Arts Club in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park to pour our California wines for a room full of artists, philanthropists, and musicians. It was my second Sonoma Wine Education Seminar at the club,…