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A Master Sommelier Talks International Champagne Day

Simon Law
/
Wikimedia Commons
Pouring Champagne

Friday, Oct. 20, is International Champagne Day. But, what makes Champagne so special? And, how do Proseccos, Cremants, Cavas, and Spumantes stack up?

Andrew McNamara is the vice president of wine development for Breakthru Beverage in Florida. To celebrate the holiday, he joins Gulf Coast Live to answer some of those questions with a tutorial on the difference between sparkling wines.

As the chairman of the board of the Court of Master Sommeliers, McNamara also offers his input on the California wildfires and the impact this devastating situation will have on the domestic wine industry.

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.