wine in the news
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Recent Reviews+Interviews
Former Châteauneuf-du-Pape Producer Explains the Efficacy of Biodynamic Viticulture — An Interview with Wine Consultant Philippe Armenier —
Biodynamic viticulture was something with which I'd been vaguely familiar when I first learned about the work of wine consultant Philippe Armenier. It was during an interview I conducted some time ago with one of his clients that I began to suspect that this once-obscure approach to winegrowing was becoming increasingly practiced among premium producers. In fact, in turns out that Armenier has provided Biodynamic services to quite a long list of prestigious clients that includes Joseph Phelps, Grgich Hills, Opus One, Peter Michael, and Cain, among a few dozen other reputable wine brands up and down the west coast of the United States. And yet, it's all a far cry from where the former winemaker originally hails from the south of France, where he used to make wine under his own label — that is, until he sold the property, moved to California, and devoted his time entirely to consulting on Biodynamic farming. Since then, the expatriate's success in earning a long list of devotees has been remarkable, given that the mainstream often considers the practice to be a rather unorthodox tangent of agriculture. Skeptics notwithstanding, it appears that evidence is growing considerably in support of its efficacy, some of which I, myself, witnessed while Armenier took me on a tour to some of his clients' vineyards in the Napa Valley. It was there among the vines that I learned the capabilities of this rather unconventional strategy in the quest to make better wines.
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Napa Wine Brand is Music to the Ears — An Interview with the Winemaker of R&B Cellars —
Just as with their passion for music — referenced in the artwork of the vibrant blue labels on their wine bottles — love of wine comes across lyrically and resonantly in person with Kevin and Barbara Brown, the husband and wife team behind R&B Cellars. Sitting down with the couple in the living room of their spacious and charming Victorian house in San Francisco's bucolic suburb of Alameda, I spoke with them about R&B's portfolio of wines, their respective styles, and their relative position among California wines. I took keen interest in having Kevin share not only his winemaking experience, but also, given his prior background in wines sales, his perspective on the market as a whole and what he felt were the best approaches for the consumer to make the most out of an oftentimes confusing wine-buying experience.
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Founding Owner of Napa's Oakville East Promotes a New Sub-Appellation — An Interview with Proprietor Elliot Stern —
The American consumer is one who heavily identifies with brands. And while super-premium wine is an agricultural product whose quality is heavily predicated on the geographical origin of its grapes, branding is nevertheless front and center in the sales strategies of most produced in this country. Yet where does the concept of terroir, or place, fit into this? Very often, producers make this secondary to the marketing of their brands. The founder of one recent venture in California, however, has taken the step not only of articulating the identity inherent in the eastern hillside of Napa Valley's Oakville — essentially sub-appellating it — but, perhaps more significantly, choosing to use its micro-terroir as the very inspiration for a brand name. I spoke with Elliot Stern about what led to the inception of his Cabernet co-op, Oakville East, and what choices went into the production of its first wine, Exposure.
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wine in the news
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