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
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.
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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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Winery Entrepreneur Restores Site History, Seeks to Elevate Alexander Valley — An Interview with the Proprietor of Blue Rock Vineyard —
The surface of Alexander Valley's utmost potential as a wine region has barely been scratched. At least that's the belief of a small cadre of local producers dedicated to crafting premium Bordeaux varietal wines — of whom one is particularly adamant in his determination to help realize that promise. Kenneth Kahn, proprietor of Blue Rock Vineyard, while doing his own part to prove what this Sonoma appellation is truly capable of, is hoping that the efforts of its quality-driven producers will help to bring a new level of recognition to this region. With a respectful nod to the mid-priced wines that first earned the area media attention, Kahn nevertheless remains committed and driven to pushing the limit of its possibilities in an effort to demonstrate that Alexander Valley is capable of accomplishing so much more. I sat down with this bold entrepreneur to learn more about his vision for this wine region and how his brand Blue Rock fits into it.
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wine in the news
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