May’s “Top Three Wines” headline does not contain a typo. The reference to Ontario, Canada is purposeful. As a matter of fact, southern Ontario’s wine region (41°-44°) finds itself in a close latitudinal relationship with the Loire Valley (46°-47°), home turf for May’s other top wines. A couple of this month’s finishers are certain discoveries, […]
Controversy Corked: 2005 Joly Coulee de Serrant Savennieres
It’s a controversy I won’t take sides with and instead hope to convince you of its senselessness. Never mind the plethora of world class, fairly priced, old world wines anchoring my enthusiasm for the Loire Valley. Instead, let’s focus on magicians like Foucalt, Huet, and Joly that are flooding my deepening vortex of Loire fanaticism […]
Sur Lie and Bottle Aged Muscadet in May
Years ago on a bright seventy degree afternoon, moments after tying off our boat in the Camargue’s picturesque Marseillan port, I fell in love with Muscadet and its Melon de Bourgogne grape lounging in a simple oyster restaurant’s tiny outdoor courtyard. It was a magical few hours. I was taken by the wine’s satiating freshness, crisp acidity, […]
Top Three Wines of April: Alsace, Rhone, and Loire
With a clean sweep of “Top Wines of April”, I am reminded that if I could only drink wines from one country for the rest of my life, it would be France. These April winners prove that despite a weakened dollar and skyrocketing prices for in-demand Bordeaux, Burgundy, and top Rhones, it’s still entirely possible […]
Oxidative Wine Styles: Zind Humbrecht and Rene & Agnes Mosse
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
2005 Clos Rougeard Les Poyeux and Menton Boston
In both cases, drinking 2005 Clos Rougeard (click for review) and luxuriating over dinner at Barbara Lynch’s Menton (click for review) in Boston’s Fort Point extension last week were opportunities for critical return visits. I first tasted the entry level 2005 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny a couple of months back and made my one and only previous visit to […]
Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny 2005: Best Wine This Year
I am fortunate to taste more than one man’s fair share of special wine every month. Tonight, in the context of a business dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar with a young, smart, scrappy, web marketing guru from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we experienced the most compelling red wine I have tasted this year, and most probably one […]