The two bottles of 1959 Moulin Touchais Anjou and Coteaux du Layon I tasted, like me, were 54 years old. Beyond common birth year, the wines and I have very little to do with each other. I was born in Brooklyn; the bottles in Loire Valley’s western Anjou region. The wines are quite sweet; me, not so much […]
Old Major Erupts as Denver Culinary Fourteener
Rocky Mountain views, not food and wine, were my stalwart moments of inspiration and calm during nine years of heavy business travel to Denver. Any remarkable dining here always tracked towards healthy or comfortable, nothing too fancy nor too smart. Chefs and sommeliers seemed to carefully avoid even the slightest nod to over reaching, potentially […]
Txomin Etxaniz Txakoli Wine Moment
Normally, I think of Txakoli, Txakolina, or phonetically represented chockoleena in easy-drinking aperitif terms; refreshing, simple, high acidity, dazzling spritz, low alcohol. However you say or spell it, the wine pairs particularly well with seafood and a wider range of pintxos, casually served in tumblers inside Spain’s Basque region taverns. If you will, these wines remind me of little […]
Stealthy Pinot Meunier
Did Pinot Meunier enter the witness protection program? While most famous for a major role in Champagne blending along with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, when was the last time you drank a bottle of still red wine produced from Pinot Meunier after substantial skin contact? The variety has successfully avoided headlines while holding honors as […]
Permission to Drink Beautiful Aged Wines
A multitude of milestone celebrations produced a legion of guiltless permissions to pop corks on aged wines last month. Graduations, birthdays, and the annual Troquet summer cellar clearance converged. Birth year wines of graduating children, old bottles carried to my home by giddy parents on the precipices of new empty-nest lifestyles, Troquet wines on sale, and […]
Wine War in Quebec
War is waged on wine in Quebec. If it ever inspires a Hollywood screenplay, audiences will root for allied force generals like Vignoble Carone’s Anthony Carone walking arrogantly through scene after scene of shrapnel hailstorms unfettered by his constant wounds. Mike Marler, “General” of Les Pervenches, would provide hope to audiences with his battle preparedness, intellect, and unwavering grit […]
Blind Tasting: Varied Styles of 2010 Northern Rhone Reds
One might assume having tasted ten Northern Rhone red wines from the same 2010 vintage and two new world 2010 Syrahs side-by-side, blind, that the Rhone wines showed as siblings while the two new world Syrahs tagged along as genetically distinct and adopted brothers. As our Boston tasting group discovered blind tasting the 2010 Northern Rhone […]
Valentina Cubi Naturally Connects Valpolicella With Food
It is debatable whether Amarone, or even Valpolicella, have ever occupied a comfortably suitable spot on the dinner table. These combinations of dried Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara grapes can easily overwhelm most dishes with raisin-prune flavors, powerful concentration, oak, high alcohol, and heat. There are acceptable food pairing exceptions like Gorgonzola and other strong cheeses, […]
Collio Red Wine
White, not red, is the forgivable reflex for wine lovers contemplating Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s Collio and Carso DOCs. Could a Collio red wine command attention? With the likes of Gravner, Radikon, Keber, Venica & Venica, Zidarich, Jermann, and more making global benchmark white, yellow, and orange wines in steels, woods, and amphoras from indigenous Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, […]
Brachetto d’Acqui & Paso Robles Wines Connected?
The 2011 Pineto Brachetto d’Acqui and 2009 Bodegas Paso Robles Doña Blanca are wines of different worlds. Besides the fact Pineto’s Brachetto d’Acqui is a sweet red sparkling wine from Italy’s broader Piedmont region and Doña Blanca is a Grenache Blanc/Malvasia Bianca dry white central coast California wine, the Paso Robles produced Doña Blanca deepens their […]
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