It was an amusing week dipping into the online wine-world, witnessing Stephen Tanzer barreling clumsily into the blogosphere with his Winophilia and Tom Johnson striking a chord at Palate Press, accusing wine blogs of failing its readers. Tanzer, an established traditional media wine critic, is Editor and Publisher of the International Wine Cellar while Johnson, a recently converted […]
Special Wine Alert: 2008 Brewer-Clifton Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir
Tonight, a couple of colleagues and I hosted dinner at Sushi Den in Denver for Chris Mygatt, President of Coldwell Banker Residential in Colorado. Chris was a great dinner companion, and shared some of the really progressive activities he has been orchestrating in concert with the 1100 Colorado Coldwell agents. It is possible to get […]
Bottle Age Challenge: 1985 Lynch Bages vs. 1985 Chateau Montelena
I opened two $20 wines, one from Napa Valley and one from Bordeaux’s Paulliac appellation, for a few remaining tasters hanging around after our challenging 2007 Southern Rhone tasting. Don’t let the retail values throw you; price tags are acquisition costs for the 1985 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1985 Lynch Bages that I […]
2004 Dumol Syrah: A Country Club Wine?
American country clubs and their wine lists are simpatico; boring, nondescript bottles of wine punctuated by a few “has been”, overpriced, tired Cabernet and Chardonnay brands served up to a homogeneous pool of status-subscribing members willing to pay for social standing. Apologies for these harshly extreme generalizations, but my memory banks were recently refreshed at a […]
Sadie Family Vineyards: Tops South Africa Wine Charts
I visited South Africa a couple of weeks ago ready to embrace whatever the local wine scene served up. Curious and relatively uniformed, I tasted both good and marginal wines. Out of conversations with local producers and trade, I noted definite instances of commitment to farming and wine making styles geared to produce honest, quality […]
Platter’s: Showcase and Reliable Guide for South African Wine
Sheltered from cooling afternoon rains by a thatched roof structure on the Zimbabwe side of its border with Zambia, I started applying context to a few days of exclusively South African wines. I, like lots of American wine drinkers, don’t pay a lot of attention to the category. The US does not even rank in […]
Wine and Food at Troquet: Half of Uncanny New York Analog
On August 26, 2009 Frank Bruni inked his last New York Times Dining column answering a group of questions that follow around restaurant critics with pulpits as authoritative as his. Finding great value is on everyone’s minds these days, and his “top value spot” answer to New York foodies neatly covered two of my favorite […]
Open Offer to Taste My (Malcolm's) 1982 Vieux Chateau Certan
I consider myself “wine fortunate”, acquiring wine and friends over the years that fuel hedonistic and intellectual wine passions. One of those friends is Malcolm. I don’t see Malcolm regularly, yet each year for the last 15 we manage to find opportunities to get really silly and drink ridiculously excellent wine together. It was great to see […]
Fantasy Wine Fiction: Dinner for One
via drinksareonme.net Last week Dale Cruse, the irreverently astute and bright mind behind www.drinksareonme.net asked if I was interested in playing along with a new game he cooked up called “crowdsourcing wine fan fiction”. I knew it had to be some neat way to legitimize or make sense of the sensually interesting and edgy wine inclusive photos Dale has […]
Zen, Hot Dogs, and Albarino
Yes, as the post’s title reflects, there is wine involved. But this simple, value infused story of Willy completely transcends the bottle of Rias Baixas blended white varietals I presented to him a few mornings ago in our annual Christmas gift exchange (I always get his wife’s heavenly spiced papaya dish) on a beach we ritually retreat to near San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the end […]