Wine-searcher has just published a helpful “Complete Guide to Ice Wine“. I’m often asked if Switzerland’s justly famous sweet late harvest wines are ice wines, because people from elsewhere assume that with snowy Alpine peaks this is a cold country and the grapes freeze on the vines. The term “vin de glacier” adds confusion to […]
Wineries
Sion’s classy new wine tourism centre
The Celliers de Sion will make skiers as well as flatlanders happy this winter, with a new wine tourism centre that has just opened, 1 December. Winter visitors to the area can now opt for an easy introduction to two of the region’s largest wineries, learning something in the process about central Valais wines. The […]
Architecture and wine: Italy’s Carapace succeeds
Final article in a 4-part series Wine-alive inside a living sculpture, a photo montage The Carapace, a winery designed by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro for the Ferrari estate Tenuta Castelbuono near Montefalco, is a rarity, for it is everything an architectural masterpiece and working winery should be (see my article on Medium). The Lunelli family, […]
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 […]
Best of Sagrantino
part 2 of 3 articles on Montefalco’s Sagrantino wines Montefalco’s top wines: my picks A note about prices: the Montefalco Rossos, which are blends, vary from about €10 to 15 (cellar prices), sometimes higher for reserves, and in Europe you can expect to pay anywhere from €18 to 40 for Sagrantino wines, with higher prices […]