Archive for October, 2011
Kings Of The Carso
In the Carso, you’ve really, really got to want to make wine, because producing just a single bottle takes patience, tenacity and an enormous amount of effort. This rocky corner of Friuli, by the Gulf of Trieste, is riddled with collapsed underground grottos and very little topsoil in which to plant vines. (more…)
Take It To The Ridge
Thirty-five years ago it used to really matter that your wine tasted French, even if it had been made thousands of miles away. Like in California.
This point was proved in the so-called Judgement of Paris in 1976, when – in a blind wine tasting – a Californian red and white beat two top French wines: a Château Mouton-Rothschild Pauillac and a Domaine Roulot Meursault Charmes.
“Last week in Paris… the unthinkable happened: California defeated all Gaul,” wrote Time journalist George Taber. Just those few words, in a four-paragraph scoop, shook the wine world to its core. (more…)
Russian River Wine Roaming
We had it all planned out. A day touring vineyards in the Russian River Valley in Sonoma, where I think some of California’s loveliest wines come from. But a client’s mini-crisis, the promise of a scorching day and an *ahem* late night at the Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg conspired against us. We left late and the siren call of a cooling pool was too loud to ignore. (more…)