About

Foodandwineblog.com is a journey into food, wine, fine dining, travel and culture. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, foodandwineblog.com is a free website that provides wine reviews, wine region overviews, and articles on topics ranging from wine and health to wine politics.  Another major focus of the site is fine dining, both at home using simple recipes or in the best restaurants in Baltimore and around the world.  Take a look around and let me know what you think.  To have your restaurant, wine or other product reviewed, please contact: Michael@foodandwineblog.com.

About the editor: Michael Mohammadi

By day I am a medical researcher working on a PhD in physiology in a neuroscience lab.  At night, I am an aspiring food and wine journalist.    I have worked in the wine industry on the wholesale side and currently spend a lot of time attending tastings, reading books and other publications pertaining to food and wine and am very passionate about my learning.

I have a passion for cooking and once dreamed to graduate from culinary school.  I keep recipes simple and try to highlight the flavors of the main ingredient.  I love the challenge of pairing the right wine with any dish.  My culinary influences are vast, ranging from German, to Persian (my heritage) to traditional American or Mediterranean.  I would define my cooking style as “simple with a twist” and almost always make a dish with a wine pairing or experience in mind.

My family owns a house in a small town in Germany called Herborn-Seelbach which is 55 miles (about 90 kilometers) north of Frankfurt and less than two hours from where some of the best Rieslings in the world are made. Rightfully so, I love German Rieslings, German food and of course, German beer! I’ve also traveled Italy and have a love and passion for Italian wines.

My other passions include writing, spending time with my three dogs, and watching the Lions, Red Wings, Tiger’s, or Michigan Football. I love to run and hike and especially like cold weather mountaineering and camping, as well as back country skiing.

I am focusing on the Baltimore area wine and food scene, but will include reviews and information from my travels around the world. The whole point of this site is to make wine and fine dining informal and fun. For information on how I rate wines and my personal tastes, see the “Wine Ratings” page.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate: michael@foodandwineblog.com.

Cheers,

Michael (pictured above with the vines of Fuligni: one of the premier producers of Brunello di Montalcino)

Greg B: Greg is a new contributor to foodandwineblog.com as of June 2008.  Greg is a fellow PhD candidate and food and beer enthusiast.  He makes some outstanding beers in his home that he’s always willing to share with friends and strangers.  Though not yet an expert, Greg has a great palate and loves wine as well.  He is a great addition to the website and I look forward to following his journey into beer, food and wine.  You can e-mail him at: greg@foodandwineblog.com

Disclaimer: All material on this website are the opinions of its author(s). Material is copyright and may not be reproduced without permission. The intended audience is persons of legal drinking age in the country of which the site is being accessed. If you are reading this, or visiting this site, you acknowledge that you are in fact, of legal drinking age. Wineries wishing to have me review a wine for the site, please contact me at: michael@foodandwineblog.com

Michael (pictured here with Nadia, one of two of my Siberian Huskies!)

Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY - COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY

This site is owned and operated by Michael Mohammadi. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At foodandwineblog.com, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

INFORMATION foodandwineblog.com GATHERS AND TRACKS

foodandwineblog.com gathers two types of information about users:

• Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys:
• Information foodandwineblog.com gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers’ needs and to help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our audience. Because foodandwineblog.com derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships and advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to keeping our service free to users. Under no circumstances does foodandwineblog.com divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.

foodandwineblog.comGathers User Information In The Following Processes:

Optional Voluntary Information

We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

Privacy Policy

1. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)

We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. foodandwineblog.com gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.

2. Message boards/forums policy

Users of the site’s Message Boards and Forums must register separately for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn’t register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.

3. “E-mail this to a friend” policy

Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking “e-mail this to a friend”. The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.

4. Polling

We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. foodandwineblog.com may use a system to “tag” users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.

5. Surveys

foodandwineblog.com may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Privacy Policy Template changes

The policy clause about children below is becoming more important as it is nearly impossible to tell the age of any visitor. We recommend adding this sample line to all your forms that request information.

Children

Consistent with the Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.

Usage tracking

foodandwineblog.com tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. foodandwineblog.com does break down overall usage statistics according to a user’s domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user’s browser).

foodandwineblog.com sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Cookies

We may place a text file called a “cookie” in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. foodandwineblog.com uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates.

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you’ve set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.

Privacy Policy Use

How the information you gather is used if relevent.

USE OF INFORMATION

foodandwineblog.com uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.

As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. foodandwineblog.com never shares newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don’t track which terms a particular user enters.

foodandwineblog.com creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don’t track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SHARING OF THE INFORMATION

foodandwineblog.com uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience’s demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SECURITY

foodandwineblog.com operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

OPT-OUT POLICY

We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

• Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
• Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users

YOUR CONSENT

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by foodandwineblog.com. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.