Current New Jersey wine law affords its in state, small, fledgling wine producing industry the right to sell direct to consumers from their own showrooms. That’s a good thing because wholesalers will not handle these small production wines and 90% of the state’s local winery sales occur just this way. Practically all New Jersey wineries, […]
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 […]
Drink Ribera With a Vega Sicilia Kicker
January is a time for dormant vines, hushed wineries, and touring wine makers. It signals a season of invitations to trade and press dinners, events, and tastings that can stress even the loosest calendar. I managed to squeeze in a Vega Sicilia tasting hosted by Spain’s Ribera del Duero viticultural region, or DO. Spain’s de […]
Wine Style Experiment Offers Palate Redemption
Raging self doubt and curiosity fuels an unremitting panoply of cross examinations intended to dig up the root cause of my shifting preference in wine style. Have I fallen victim to trend and popular fashion? Is my palate simply evolving? Or, have I discovered regions and varietals I once dismissed without fair chance? Did I subconsciously succumb to a new breed […]
2008 Clos Erasmus Laurel Delivers Egoless Second Label Quality
Second labels, or second wines, hold a secure place in my world of wine. They can be excellent, delivering chateaux or house styles sans incremental touches of their primary labels’ magic or inflated price tags. Estate bottling, declassified barrels, blended younger vines, and vineyards in close proximity to primary estate boundaries are just some strategies […]
Wine Bottega and Clos Rougeard: Case for Social Media Wine Marketing
The ever present fragility of my inflated confidence born from half a life of wine enthusiasm can be awfully humbling. Every year I discover a winery, region, or pool of knowledge that showers self doubt on the veracity of my commitment for exploring and learning about wine; “How could I claim to know anything, really, […]
Top Three Wines of December
France scores a smooth hat trick in the WineZag “Top Three Wines” December round up. This holiday month provided ample opportunity to drink a lot of great, and not so great, wine with boastful price tags and venerable credentials. These WineZag “top three” wines are especially worthy, all offering pinnacle palate moments that stand out […]
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