Pouring over wine lists before meals is the ultimate public foreplay. In advance of fine dining reverie, the hunt for favorites, values, rarities, ultimates, and classics is my secret little indulgence. It’s a moment of truth that determines the tone of an evening’s meal. I remember the same jittery excitement stepping into Coney Island’s Luna […]
Erpacrife Nebbiolo-Best Sparkling Wine Ever?
Rarely do the polarizing forces du jour swirling around wine’s combustible circles, like new world vs. old world, traditional vs. modern, or natural vs. unnatural(?), create radically new standard bearers overnight. Each corner in the world of wine is too steeped in history, nature, method, and skill to be knocked out in a single round. So how […]
3 Reasons Puech-Haut Prestige 2009 Is Top Holiday Wine
Imagine the convenience of someone delivering two cases of one very perfect red wine to your front door every year at the start of the holiday season. Not 100 point and $6,000 a case perfect, just perfectly versatile, delicious, and affordable red wine for all the usual and familiar holiday situations. Something to serve at oversubscribed […]
5 Reasons Winery Mailing Lists Fail Consumers
Winery mailing lists live at the crossroads of privileged access and blind consumerism. High demand, limited release, and cult wines combined with unnavigable distribution challenges to spawn a “mailing list” culture that left some wineries with powerful sets of marketing and distribution crutches. At its most functional, direct to consumer marketing makes it easier for […]
Calvet-Thunevin Hugo On Turtle Creek Mansion List
Once again I found myself staring at a classic wine list, this time at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, that was deep in severely marked up classic Bordeaux, Burgundy, and California Cabernet. Looking for an after dinner bottle to enjoy with some colleagues did not call for $300 California Cabernet, $600 Burgundy, nor […]
Top Three Wines – Roagna, Huet, and A Donkey & Goat
The fact these three wines rose to the top of an epically long list of compelling wines place them in a class of their own. One is from Sierra Foothills vineyards and a small young Berkeley, California winery while the other two are firmly ensconced in their old Barbaresco and Vouvray regions. A bonus to last month’s wine […]
Wine Writing Styles Reflect Culture
There is no surprise that Do Bianchi author Jeremy Parzen, whose wine and food credentials drip with immersion and cultural understanding, recently managed to illustrate old world vs. new world wine writing styles in utterly poignant fashion. In his post about the differences in European and American wine writing genres he brings new light to the […]
De Forville Nebbiolo 2009 – Another Rosenthal Wine Value
Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchants was table #2 and (*** $20) 2009 De Forville Langhe Nebbiolo was wine #3. Rosenthal was one of nine importers and distributors showcasing 45 wines in total at the 8th annual Ball Square Fine Wines Grand Tasting. Without too much surprise, Rosenthal’s portfolio offered exciting moments at another chock-a-block event where sellers […]
Wine Crush, Knowledge, and Beauty
Two favorite wine writers recently teased at the distinction between sensual wine discovery and accumulated wine knowledge. Their words fanned a flame first kindled by my earliest wine crush back in the mid eighties. Not the press and juice kind of crush. I mean the ten-year-old-kiddie-kind-of-crush; when just the thought of that special “someone” lightens […]
Roagna Paje Barbaresco 2003 and Grindhouse Burgers
Last week I paired a really ugly hamburger with an indisputably pretty wine. The burger was just as delicious as it was ugly. The wine, on the other hand, was as graceful, balanced, and pretty as folks have come to expect from a Luca Roagna […]
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