Gathered around a few white cloth-covered tables under brighter than usual Saturday night lights, I hosted a group of 17 New England tasters to evaluate a dozen wines made from the Mencia grape. Finally, the opportunity to examine Mencia in a critical environment presented itself and I looked forward to validating my developed preference that I have unleashed on restaurant wine lists across the […]
Wine Makers and Mortgage Makers Reverse Greedy Paths
I recoiled and pushed away the crystal stemware wondering if some savory syrup was masquerading as wine, and that maybe its destiny was to spread like jam on slices of peanut butter slathered Wonder Bread. This sensory collision with high alcohol and unrestrained ripeness was triggered a few years back cracking open a 2005 Mollydooker The Boxer screw top, a wine Robert Parker awarded 95 points to […]
Clos Roche Blanche: Gamay as Touraine Treat
When a wine and its fruit are born from a low yield program, organically farmed, raised in vineyards planted at the end of the 19th century, hang from old vines, retail around $15, hail from a Loire Valley appellation, and find their way to the US as a Louis/Dressner Selection, it gets my attention. This fusion of vinous genetics brought me face to face with the […]
Social Wine Media as Emblem For Learning
As the year closes I am momentarily preempting another wine ramble to share some experience and perspective that intersects both private and public realms, emerging as personally significant if not life changing. In this story is a life lesson about new experiences that are just around the corner and accessible to anyone; experiences that have the potential to become wholly meaningful, but can just as easily disguise […]
Guest Post: Holiday Food and Wine Pairing in Arkansas
I was recently asked by the editors of At Home in Arkansas magazine (full disclosure: I have a business and financial relationship with the magazine) to participate in their guest blog holiday series by providing this guest post on wine and the holidays. The magazine is the leading home design and lifestyle magazine in that region, and […]
WineZag Alert: How to Stretch the $US in France's Wine Market
I want to share a stunning winner from the Loire Valley, made by Marc Ollivier, fully hand harvested, from Muscadet’s heralded appellation between the Sevre and Maine rivers, that sits on its lees until bottling, which you can drink now or lay away for more than 25 years, brought to us by Louis/Dressner . Oh and by the way, it costs $13. An […]
Courting Mencia: How Have I Lived Without You?
Bear with me, I am falling in love again. I have been peripatetically traversing the Ribeira Sacra and Bierzo regions by tasting every Mencia wine I manage to unearth and then blabbering away about the new discoveries here at WineZag. A byproduct of utter submission to my new Mencia tick, I recently met up with Joe Austekewicz, wine director at Yankee Spirits, who just returned from a foray through these very regions alongside Eric Solomon . […]
Wine Sales Stink and The World is Not Flat
In Silicon Valley Bank’s recently released Preliminary Findings Report (you won’t get a recap of all the details here, save a few, so click on the link and download the PDF if you are so inclined) which precedes their more exhaustive Spring 2010-2011 Annual State of the Wine Industry Report, the Bank’s opening salvo declared; The […]
Mendoza Monday: Focus on Wines of the Uco Valley
John and family recently returned to the US following a year-long Life-Zag in and around Mendoza (with a separate story Side-Zag to Barcelona). Carrying back a souvenir passion for great Argentine wines and epic grilling sessions, I ended up in a subterranean space in his barely decorated new home in Needham, MA this past Monday to taste through a wide range of wines […]
15 Wines in Simple Format Unlock Path To Wine Apprecation
Hosting less experienced wine drinkers to easily replicated and structured tasting formats appeals to my ritual instincts for making wine more accessible to more people. On the one hand, it’s a refreshing personal break from the usual “club” and a way to strip away the bravado and bias brought to tasting tables by hardened wine aficionados. On the other hand, it is a chance for me […]
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