I am trying to develop palate education around oxidative wine styles. There is plenty of available information about it, but distinguishing between one wine subjected to an oxidative wine making process and another wine that primarily oxidizes through bottle age, without any specific knowledge about the wine maker’s approach, is not always straight forward for […]
White Wines Of Alto Adige
Alto Adige: Part II – The Wines While the inspiring Alto Adige alpine basin landscape is undeniably alluring, confronting a flight of mid-term, bottle-aged white wines from the region’s leading cooperatives is utterly compelling. Single varietal bottlings of Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Gewurztraminer along with blended versions involving even more varietals were unanimously distinctive and serious […]
Does Stony Hill Produce Age Worthy California Chardonnay?
My last bottles of 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1997 Stony Hill Chardonnay comprised a short vertical flight preceding two blind flights of 2007 Cabernets that sixteen members of our Boston tasting group recently slurped, swallowed, and spit their way through. I purchased the wines on release back in the 90’s and one bottle from each […]
Sweet Wines: Alto Aldige Moscato Rosa and Uruguay Tannat
A pile of dessert wine (intensely jealous my UK friends get to call them pudding wines) occupies a small and lonely cellar corner. Pulling a few bottles out of their racks reminded me of the country and continental indiscrimination I apply to this wine category with bottles from Germany, France, Australia, California, South America, Italy, Portugal, and […]
Saumur, Champagne, and a Little Giant
I have been eating and shopping for wine in New York City this past week and will share a connected vignette of a Saumur-Champigny shopping find, a transported Champagne note, and a wine friendly restaurant. This week’s quick holiday in New York, where my wine and personal roots run deepest, produced unfavorably opposite impressions on my wallet […]
Avanthia Godello and Mencia: Valdeorras Magic in a Bottle
Avanthia is a knockout, compelling young project unveiling itself in the Galician mountains of Valdeorras in Spain’s extreme northwest. I remain in awe of Avanthia’s interpretation of Mencia and Godello after discovering these wines in complete serendipitous fashion. Magic in a bottle flows from this collaboration involving Jumilla’s established Monastrell-proficient Gil family, venerable importer Jorge Ordonez, […]
Three Champagne Tasting Lessons
The blind Champagne tasting was organized for our group’s usual critical dissection. The sparklers made the tasting calendar because a regular member of our vinous clan, Dale Cruse, has been wrapped in a self declared “Champagne Campaign” mission, adhering to his disciplined plan of tasting at least one glass of sparkling wine every day for a […]
Top Three Wines of January: Spain and Bordeaux
Anointing three top January wines cast a cloudy challenge on WineZag’s monthly ritual. The first thirty-one days of this new year provided ample opportunity to taste a surfeit of over-the-top wines that unavoidably skew the aggregate three bottle price skyward, approaching $450. Plaguing fact of wine enthusiasm: Great wine can be expensive and detours are occasionally […]
2008 Bordeaux Vintage Tasting
The Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux just rolled across America on a four city press and trade tour with more than one hundred different Chateau owners, representatives, and wines representing and promoting the 2008 vintage from thirteen different appellations. Normally, for fun, context, and some learning I’ll pour two different vintages of the same […]
Revisiting Cambridge’s T.W. Food
Walden Street floats in unremarkable limbo somewhere between Harvard’s and Fresh Pond’s respective square and roundabout. I managed to discover the street in the autumn of 2007 checking out Tim Wiechmann’s newly opened T.W. Food, and immediately returned for a second confirming fix of Wiechmann’s brilliant and individually styled french country cuisine. Because it was […]
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