Wine and Spirits Travel

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Atlantic City and there couldn’t have been a better way to get reacquainted than a celebration of a friend’s birthday hosted at The Borgata , with a little Caesar’s Sex and the City partying sprinkled in. Gail and I have been friends for more years than I care to mention and she was celebrating a milestone birthday of which she doesn’t care to mention.   We gathered on the Jersey Shore with her family at The Water Club Hotel in Atlantic City.  I had been to the Borgata years ago after its renovation and it had always impressed me with its modernly elegant style.   The Water Club is a magnified extension of that classiness, as only the Borgata can do it.  The rooms are large and contemporary, with extra features like flat screen TVs and large enclosed showers.  As nice as they were, however, we were not about to spend much time in our rooms. Dinner was at Fornelletto , an eclectic combination of Northern and Southern Italy.  After a long day

Bloomington is known as a popular college town that houses the University of Indiana. It’s also the home of Indiana’s largest winery and I had the pleasure of visiting Oliver Winery on my trip there. Oliver Winery certainly deserves its label as the state’s largest. It’s a place with many personalities that show through in more than 40 wines. Here you will find the ordinary and the extraordinary in a rare combination of home grown and home blended. From the moment you step into the shop/tasting room at Oliver you know this is something different. The store is filled with unusual sauces, dips, chocolates, jellies and cheeses that all of one thing in common – they come from the Midwest. As tempting as it was to walk away with a sauce called Mediterranean Pinot Grigio from Ohio, Crazy Charlie’s Salsa from Indiana and Zzans Chocolate from Michigan, I remembered that I was there to check out the wine. There are two personalities to Oliver Winery. The first is in its namesake, a col