Switzerland has such distinctly different areas that when you live in one you really have to move around and visit others to make sense of the whole. I’m spending a couple of days out of my French comfort zone to stumble and mumble in greater Zürich. With wine on the brain, of course. Thursday evening […]
Travels
When I travel, I drink wine. In fact, I usually organize my travels around learning about it because wine isn't a beverage, it's a culture.
Discovery channel: Moldovan wines
Until this week, I’d never had a Moldovan wine. Here’s my primer and wine tasting notes, after a Wednesday evening visit to the 13 stands of the guest of honour, Wine of Moldova, at the Arvinis wine fair in Montreux (April 25-30). The country, the wine regions The country is the Republic of Moldova (1991), previously the […]
Spain’s “The New Vignerons”: book review
Luis Gutiérraz makes you want to catch the next plane to Spain to explore the country’s exciting wine developments. He’s the author of a 2016 book in Spanish (English version recently out, e-book available), The New Vignerons, A new generation of Spanish wine growers, that forces you to question all the marketing bumpf you’ve happily […]
Sagrantino’s technical tamers
Third in a 4-part series How to make great wine despite astringent tannins If a wine has strong tannins, you cellar it until it becomes drinkable, right? That’s one step, but there is quite a lot more to getting a good wine from grapes with very strong tannins. Sicily’s Nero d’Avola is the grape I’ve […]
Umbrian good karma: rebirth of Sagrantino
First of a 4-part series Montefalco is a relatively new Umbrian magnet for winelovers, thanks in no small part to its intriguing contrasts. Start with the town itself, all hardness cushioned by softness: built on and surrounded by pink-tinged monastic era stone, perched above green rolling hillsides. Shop after shop boasts foods for grandmothers’ recipes and […]