The winemakers of Soquel Vineyards joined some choice company when the 2015 Sunset International Wine Competition awards came out in the current (November) issue of Sunset Magazine. From a field of 3000 entries, Soquel Vineyards joined a handful of New World Pinot...

A recent two-week trip to England rewarded me with fine weather —in the 70s practically every day, with one day of drizzle—great countryside walking, and the denouement, a chance to see Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet, live, at the Barbican. My companion and I...

The British fondness for sweets is alive and well, as we quickly discovered. Tea time is not simply something tourists want to experience—it is the national pastime, at all times of day!  Here is a lovely sampling of tea and cakes we enjoyed overlooking the Avon on...

But it wasn't all cakes in Bath, a sophisticated spa town with a University, upscale boutiques, and a history of partying since the 18th century heyday of Beau Nash. On the upper edge of the old city is one of many architectural beauties, a circular park ringed by...

From surprisingly delicious pub food to even more surprisingly great weather, London delivered many close encounters with artistic masterpieces, memorable music, lavishly green parks, and way too many packs of tourists, all taking selfies and shopping like it was...

Opulence in Sugar!  Fornum & Mason's own housemade marshmallows! In pastel Queen Mum colors and flavors. more reflections on England, to be continued....

Director Lyndsey Turner had her hands full with the historic production of Hamlet that closes next week. Building a production around a high-wattage celebrity must bring a unique set of challenges. Here she was with the reigning theater superstar Benedict Cumberbatch,...

What a pleasure to re-discover a favorite pinot noir. I've never found anything from Muns Vineyard less than interesting, and in the case of the 2009 Santa Cruz Mountains Estate Pinot Noir, both interesting and accessible. Balanced tannins and nuanced fruit, an...

Finally, after months of anticipation, I was there at London's Barbican Theatre watching the much-heralded Benedict Cumberbatch bedazzle the well-worn coinage of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Was the experience worth traveling 5000 miles and 400 years to savor? In a word,...

So, anyway, yes it was and always is worth whatever you can pay to be in the theater, in the moment that the play's the thing. Digital images of a van Gogh painting will give you the basic nuts and bolts of color, composition, and overall import. But they will never...

Is it too late for Shakespeare? I don't mean the powerful texts themselves, the probing psychological depths, and brilliant literary analysis of what it is to be human—you know, the stuff that William Shakespeare, hard-working playwright, bequeathed to everyone who...

We abandoned our usual order of the caprese sandwich and dove into a bowl of housemade pozole topped with slices of ripe avocado and joined by a wee biscuit, spiced and seasoned into something both tender and tasty. Good, good, good! When at Iveta, we always order a...

I had an unsatisfying dinner the other night at a place out in the Pleasure Point neighborhood. New chef offering a new ambitious menu. But from start to finish things were just off enough to make me regret the $100 spent on dinner for two. Red wine served much too...

Randall Grahm's dream for a New World vineyard with spectacularly here and now terroir is already 40% funded, and you can be part of this project!  Act fast - only 14 days left. The ante has been upped on the great Grahm Cru IndieGoGo initiative—your support can...

Tired of racing all over town the first Friday of each month, only to find out that you missed some great opening because you tried to do a marathon art crawl? Still trying to see everything? Well, obsess no more. Here are my top three picks for First Friday in August...

Sure I'm the last person on the block to see this vehicle for the highly touted talents of apple-cheeked Amy Schumer. But let me be the first to walk away unimpressed. The film poster (left) is funnier than anything in the film. The film's uneven pacing offers...

Here's a sneak peek of my review of The Liar—the entire piece is in this week's GTWeekly.  Santa Cruz Shakespeare's nimble new production of The Liar is the sort of searing live comedy that blows all things digital right off the map. Every single actor in this...

It's hard to believe that Karen Sinsheimer is gone, so fierce was her energy and passion. In all things really, but especially for the arts. I can still see her and Audrey taking meetings, using their influence, cooking up an official Shakespeare Festival site,...

Rapid-fire fun, witty over-the-top wordplay, lavish costumes, brilliant acting—you must put Santa Cruz Shakespeare's The Liar on your August calendar. We laughed ourselves senseless on opening night and gave thanks for the astute casting, directing, and savvy choice...

Soif's Grand Opening celebration happens tomorrow, Wednesday, from 4-6. For everybody!! Come check out the new remodel, enjoy comp samples of the new menu, buy yourself a nice glass of wine and salut this team who invested in a vibrant downtown Santa Cruz. Soif.

Yes, but who—or what—is the deus in this taut probe of artificial intelligence? Directed by sci-fi screenwriter Alex Garland, Ex Machina slowly turns some of the major questions of futuristic metaphysics (e.g. Philip K. Dick) around in its spare, elegiac hour and...

Once upon a time people went out to galleries, museums, private homes, and lots of other places, to enjoy seeing artwork. Today people go out to rented spaces, retail shops, and studios to support artists. In other words, people go out and congregate in places filled...

We've been the best of friends, we've been the worst of enemies. We've been intimate and we've been indifferent. But Stephen Kessler and I have known each other for 35 years and except for the few decades when we didn't speak, we've managed to maintain a robust...