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 […]
Beaujolais Tasting Recipe: Sweet & Sour Onion Sage Bruschetta
Wine needs appropriate food to dance with with even in critically serious tasting situations. It’s one of a few life rules to steadily honor. As such, I reflexively succumb to a ceremonial tasting day duty, before each of our group’s monthly blind tasting soirees, of preparing a few things that are different and hopefully more […]
Rostaing Class, Quality, and Value From Nimes
As a year of proximity to my wine cellar ended on Christmas morning sitting on the tarmac waiting to escape to Puerto Rico’s northern shoreline, I could not stop thinking about the wine that rocked my palate the night before with the very Italian meal produced by my very Sicilian wife. I recommend wines from […]
2009 Beaujolais Tasting Highlights and Controversy
Seventeen tasters eagerly participated in our highly anticipated 2009 blind Beaujolais tasting. While the air in my home was continually pierced by clinking glassware, the halls of Boston University’s Elizabeth Bishop Wine Resource Center were most definitely hushed while several of its students, graduates, and instructors were firmly planted around our tasting table dissecting glass after […]
2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvee Tardive: Holiday Gift From Top Vintage
My brain flushed with a recognizably joyous sensation opening a newly arrived case of 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvee Tardive. I made a mental note about how the flow of wines from a reportedly great new vintage like 2009 in Beaujolais, where nature’s growing season appears to have supported more consistently reliable fruit and […]
Lopez de Heredia Wines Showcase Unique Style and Age Worthy Rioja Tradition
I lean towards naturally made wines subjected to minimal human intervention that can transport me to the vineyards, hills, and cellars of their birthplace. So it was no surprise that tasting through seven recent releases from the venerable Rioja producer, Lopez de Heredia, made for a compelling, head-turning, and fully recommended indulgence. These are profound wines which […]
Smart Pick For Global Champagne (Or Any Other) Day
Bringing the right Champagne to a party is always dicey and curious business for me. Picking bubbles for a gathering of wine and food writers creates new layers of complexity and anxiety. When the occasion falls on the evening (tonight) of a global Champagne celebration that will connect tasters all around the world at their […]
2009 Burgaud Chateau De Thulon Beaujolais Villages: Top Vintage, Producer, and Value
It has been a charmed decade for Beaujolais producers and 2009 is highly anticipated as the best yet. First there was 2003, possibly the best Beaujolais vintage in at least 40 years, producing deliciously round, richly fruited wines and then quickly followed two years later by the well hyped and overall excellent 2005 vintage where the Cru […]
Sean Thackrey Pleiades XI-XVIII: Vertical Tasting Without Boundaries
This weekend’s vertical tasting of Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades XI-XVIII offered a thrilling departure from the familiar variables more traditional vertical tasting sessions showcase; particularly the satisfying intellectual discovery stemming from sensory embodiment of vintage variation against a backdrop of consistent terroir. Then again, Marin County based Thackrey is the antithetic picture of California wine producers, coming at it with […]
Acme Fine Wines: Notable Wine Sherpas For Hunters of California’s Next Great Bottle
Acme Fine Wines, in St. Helena, is a California wine-jungle supply tunnel for hunters of the next undiscovered trophy wine. Not every wine they sell is still under the radar screen or high in value-to-quality measures, as evidenced by the Harlan sitting on their showcase shelve of hand procured bottles. Also, not all their inventory […]
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