wine in the news
Please make the Cache directory writable.
|
New Food and Wine Pairings: Taste Harmony
Try something. Try having a glass of lemonade with a chocolate chip cookie. Did you hesistate at the very idea? Now, I'm guessing you probably don't even have to go through this charade to wonder how this could even remotely be considered a good idea. And if you don't have that reaction, then by all means, try it. Now once you're past that little exercise (either virtually or in real life), push aside the glass of lemonade, and pour yourself a glass of milk and drink that with your chocolate chip cookie. Ahhhh… a little more appetizing? A bit more palatable? Of course, but you knew that, already. Okay, long story short: lemonade and chocolate (or cookies) do not go together. Why? Well, I could probably go on and on, pontificating on the reasons, touching on principles of food chemistry and taste physiology, but honestly, none of that is necessary and might even be considered overkill. Quite simply, certain tastes together are just not compatible in our mouths.
Read more...
Classic Food and Wine Pairings: Pinot Noir + Duck Breast
I love duck. It has long been one of my very favorite things. I love duck breast cooked just under medium with a nice crisp layer on that wonderful fat. I love duck confit, duck stock, Chinese duck and scallion pancakes, and duck skin cracklins — it's all fantastic! And while I'm professing love for things, how about pinot noir: I love the sweet and musty Carneros pinots, I love the amazing pinots coming from Oregon (I went to Willamette a few years back), and I have had my share of amazing earthy burgundy as well. Though I don't consider myself a wine expert, I know enough to know how little I know, and this makes me eager to learn and appreciate. So when I embarked on this exploration of classic food and wine pairings, I jumped on the duck and Pinot Noir idea and never looked back.
Read more...
New Food and Wine Pairings: Sweet Wines + Chocolate
I'm a person of strong opinions, which I frequently take pleasure in expressing. But when it comes to wine, I try to exercise caution with that tendency, because I feel that the appreciation and enjoyment of wine is a very personal experience that should only be sparingly pre-empted or tainted by 'expert' advice. However, very much like art and design, even among variations of tastes, styles, and approaches, there are still some universal, often fundamental, 'rules,' if you will, about which elements work together and which ones frankly do not. Red Wine and Chocolate do not work together.
Read more...
Recent Reviews+Interviews
Keeping a Finger on the Pulse of the Finger Lakes — A Visit to Wineries along the Seneca Lake Wine Trail —
A lot can happen in five and half years. And that goes even for wine, medical an industry much of whose progress hinges on the oscillation of the seasons and whose development is slow and steady. It was the winter of 2008 when I last wrote about the Finger Lakes region, patient and my sense is that the winemaking there has definitely evolved. Much of what I’d learned about the area at the time came from my interview with New York wine publicist, find Melissa Dobson. Both exciting and enlightening, our conversation painted a picture of a region long involved in the production of wine from indigenous grapes, but which only recently has garnered attention for its work with European varieties. More relevantly, the interview planted a seed of curiosity that inspired me to take advantage of a recent trip there to visit some local wineries.
Read more...
Sonoma Winery Delivers Quality with Value — An Interview with the Proprietors of Charles Creek Vineyard —
I'm normally very cautious about making sweeping generalizations when it comes to wine. As an artisan-driven product with a dizzying array of styles, production techniques, regions of origin, distribution channels, and variations stemming from climate and soil, wine is entirely too complex to sum up with a single turn of phrase or flourish of hand. But when it comes to the wines of Northern California, namely from the likes of Napa and Sonoma, there's one generalization that I have no hesitation with asserting: they are expensive. That is, of course, if you're looking for wines of quality. Granted, it might be stating the obvious that a price tag must be high for something well made. But if we take a good look at the continuum of wines produced in this region, many will agree that below $30 per bottle retail, their quality sharply plummets into a category overwhelmingly dominated by the uninspired and insipid. Much of it frankly verges on plonk. There are, however, a few regional producers who manage to make wines of exceptional value in the $20 to $25 range, one of which is Sonoma's Charles Creek Vineyard. In an effort to learn the story behind the portfolio of wines I admire so much for its remarkable quality in the context of great value, I spoke with the winery's proprietors, Bill and Gerry Brinton, over a casual lunch on Sonoma's main square.
Read more...
Budding Wine Brand Articulates Burgundian Varietals in the Russian River Valley — An Interview with the Winemaker of Benovia Winery —
The business of wine production is frought with considerable challenges. Beyond these, launching a premium brand is a monumental undertaking requiring a tremendous amount of resources, talent, experience, planning, and above all, a clear vision for how that brand will position itself among the seemingly countless others vying for consumer attention these days. Benovia Winery is one newcomer that seems to have all those qualities in spades. Although a great number of other producers in Sonoma County also provide handcrafted wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, this particular winery, located in the heart of the Russian River Valley, does so with the intention of showcasing the notably different styles that these varietals can manifest. Curious to learn more, I met and spoke with Benovia's winemaker Mike Sullivan and, in doing so, discovered the unique advantages the new brand is enjoying at the outset of its journey into quality-driven wine production.
Read more...
|
|
|
wine in the news
Please make the Cache directory writable.
|