Why would you drink wine from grapes you’ve never heard of unless you’re on your honeymoon or an exotic vacation? Just when you thought you were starting to understand wine because you could rattle off the names of a few grape varieties and even briefly describe the kind of wines they give, someone gets excited […]
Archives for April 2018
Exhilarating vineyards: La Combe d’Enfer
Impossible vineyards. Impossible to stand in the middle of Fully’s dramatic Combe d’Enfer in Fully, across the Rhone river from Martigny, and not be awestruck. There are higher vineyards in Switzerland and in the world, there are possibly steeper ones, there are wilder ones. My own home is higher than this. But the name gives […]
New member: Mémoire des Vins Suisses
The Mémoire des Vins Suisses, which regroups many of Switzerland’s best wine producers, has approved me as a non-producer member, at their recent annual meeting. It’s an honour, and I’m delighted, because the wineries are widely considered among the best in Switzerland and membership is by invitation only. I appreciate their recognition that serious writing […]
Is there a magic number for drinking intelligently?
You’ve surely seen the big headlines this week, that alcohol is a lot “worse for you than you thought” (Mother Jones) and that “regular excess drinking can take years off your life” (BBC) and an “extra glass of wine a day ‘will shorten your life by 30 minutes’” (The Guardian). The research in question becomes […]
Adieu, Elisabeth
Swiss Wine asked me to write a profile of Elisabeth Pasquier, whose death while she was on vacation in South America last week shocked the Swiss wine world. Please do read it, even if you didn’t know her. She has been an important part of the wine community here for the past 17 years, and […]