In today's episode, I'm chatting with Mark Pascal and Francis Schott, on their excellent radio show The Restaurant Guys. They've been in the fine dining and wine retail business for more than 25 years, and co-own Stage Left Restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which the New York Times has ranked in their excellent category and Citysearch named among the Top 10 Restaurants in America and Worth The Drive from any Major City.

Since I've chatted with them, they've launched a second restaurant called Catherine Lombardi and their Stage Left Wine Shop is booming. Although their radio show was wildly popular, they decided to retire it and focus their time on the restaurants and wine boutique, and actually get a full night's sleep now and then.

I wanted to share this one with you because we dig into some of my most personal and earliest wine stories as well as tips on how to choose a great festive wine, pairings for turkey dinner and navigating a big restaurant wine list. This is actually two episodes rolled into one as I've been a guest on their show a number of times. Enjoy the episode!

Highlights

• How do you become a wine expert?
• How can you tackle a daunting restaurant wine list?
• Should you always follow the advice of a restaurant's resident wine "expert"?
• Are you able to fit wine into your weight loss diet?
• Why is wine the perfect companion for your holiday meals?
• Can you serve Champagne before the start of the meal?
• Where can you look for Sparkling Wine that tastes as good as Champagne?
• What's the correct temperature for you to serve Champagne?
• How do you figure out how much wine you should buy?
• What can you do to make sure the wine you bring to dinner is well-received?

To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/56.