Wine(s) of the Week: Austin Food & Wine Festival Preview

By Jeremy Parzen Mon., Apr. 23 2012 at 12:00 PM

Categories: Wine Time

Photo via Anthony Giglio's Facebook.

"Wine Wise Guy" Anthony Giglio and his grandmother in a photo taken a few years ago. Anthony is as old-school New York as they come and as sweet as the cannoli his nonna used to make.

Anthony Giglio is simply one of the funniest and most fun-to-be-around people I know in the wine writing business today. The New York-born son of Neapolitan immigrants, he loves wine, food and life with a passion that spans the divide between old world and new. And whether he's guiding a tasting of high-end Burgundy or doling out advice on where to find the best pizza by the slice in Brooklyn, his irresistible New York brogue is rivaled only by his encyclopedic knowledge of all things vinous.

Anthony will be coming to Texas this week to present a couple of seminars at the Austin Food & Wine Festival, so I wrote him asking him to preview his tastings. Here's what he had to say:

I'm psyched to be pitting Chardonnays from Burgundy against their New World brethren in classic smack-down style. I'm also pitting Syrah up against Shiraz, which is really a battle between the French paradigm of Syrah versus all of the crazy New World styles out there.
But my favorite seminar is my "Temperature Tantrum," which shows how even the slightest temperature variation changes the taste of a wine -- for better or worse. By the time I leave Austin there won't be a Texan standing who doesn't chill their red wines (slightly) for the rest of their lives.

Click here for the schedule of events at the festival, and click here for Anthony's blog.

I can't wait for his New York accent to be infected by our contagious Texas twang: fuhgeddaboudit, y'all!

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