Six bottles of 2010 southern French red wines told the story. With the low yield, long hang time, high quality vintage examples selling for $17 and under at retail, the story wanted to be good. All of the wines were without flaw, dark purple, full of fruit, round, rich, and without any hard edges to make them […]
Blind Tasting 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape
Early critical accounts pegged the 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape vintage as monumental. Grenache and Syrah flourished under favorable growing conditions. Yet, decade old tasting memories bulged from powerful, tight, and stubborn bottles expressing convincing cellar potential. Could a dozen year term of lingering dark, cool rest unveil beauty beneath youthful armor? With this in mind, […]
Alessio Planeta, Sicily, and Frappato
Alessio Planeta is amiable, direct, and very Sicilian. That’s all immediately apparent. As his story unfolds, he bares an even more adventurous lining. He is one of Planeta Wines‘ family shepherds; opening wineries and tending vineyards like explorers criss-crossing Sicily’s southern slice of the Italian peninsula. Forget the easier approach of vineyard and fruit contracts […]
Pretty Cerasuolo And Ugly Halibut Ravioli
It is apparently fine to drink pretty wine with ugly food. Combining **** $30 2008 Cos Cerasuolo di Vittoria with home made halibut ravioli proved that out. Just back from Alaska with sixty pounds of halibut and lingcod fillets in tow, the flavorful white fish has been figuring into meal after meal. As deliciously addictive as fish […]
Valuing Oregon Pinot Noir
I am valuing Willamette Valley Pinot Noir looking back on four whirlwind weeks criss-crossing Georgia, Oregon, California, Alaska, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Ohio. They were particularly glorious summer-ending weeks filled with business achievement and pleasurable discoveries, bulging from new experiences, successes, friends, fishing, dining, craft beers, and wines. Astoundingly though, gazing through my rear view […]
1995 Clos du Mont Olivet: Another Lesson In Aging Wine
This is the last in a series of recent posts on cellar treasures for a while; I promise (fingers crossed behind my back). In 1998 I bought a few bottles of **** 1995 Clos du Mont Olivet Chateauneuf du Pape that stashed itself away, incognito-like, in my cellar’s Rhone Valley section. Having completely forgotten about them, I […]
Long Tail Wine and Troquet
A cellar clearance sale occurs every summer at Boston’s wine-oasis-restaurant Troquet. Once upon a time, years ago, Troquet proprietor Chris Campbell owned a simpler but no less compelling wine Mecca, UVA, in Brighton. You would find winos, sommeliers, and chefs ordering pizza and grilled meats to drink with Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Rhone wines selling for […]
Wine Cellar Celebration at AKA Bistro
Bordeaux improves through cellaring; nothing new about that. A long time ago I joined a group dinner to taste claret with Clive Coates and he drew something like this to explain a cultural gap in patience, along wines’ life trajectories, between British and American wine enthusiasts: At a very recent dinner I hosted for a group of business […]
Summer Value Wines Under $15
Beyond rare exceptions, the wine cellar goes on hold for the summer. Neither collectible nor coveted wines find their places on our Wolfeboro, NH table. Anyone that shares their summer house with steady streams of visitors can probably relate to this fine wine hiatus. Large scale seasonal entertaining inevitably ends with caseloads of empty wine […]
Pairing 2010 Brun Fleurie Beaujolais With Oysters
Opening red wine with oysters stirs cries of insubordination similar to the ones Beijing party leaders might attach to Tiananmen political dissenters. Champagne, Muscadet, Chablis, Sauvignon Blanc, Gruner, Chenin Blanc, Picpoul and a smattering of other crispy acidic white wines make the cleared list while reds take cover in their brackish shadows. Give me oysters bathed in […]
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