Eat & Drink

I remember a visit to Southern Season by Cosimo Taurino, one of Italy’s best producers of the Puglian red wine, Salice Salentino. Seems we were selling more of his wines than anybody in the American Southeast! The reason was simple; they were excellent, sound, flavorful wines that we were bringing […]

What is pinot noir supposed to taste like? Do pinots that taste wildly different from French Burgundy deserve a place in the wine world? Pinot noir is one of those grapes that doesn’t do well just anywhere. And the results can be just horrific – the smell of burnt rubber, […]

One of today’s trends worldwide is to make wine using indigenous grape varieties. Badia a Coltibuono is a famed Chianti Classico producer using the traditional (and indigenous) sangiovese grape to produce outstanding wines. But a few years back they began bottling a red wine made from sangiovese and a handful […]

Lovers of all kinds, but perhaps Prosecco lovers, might like to try today’s bubbly as a fun alternative. Riesling is no stranger to sparkling wine, with Henkell German sparkling a perennial favorite. Today’s wine comes from Argentina and is comprised of 80% riesling and 20% torrontes, Argentina’s well-known, brisk white […]

The Anderson Valley is, more and more, a ”go-to” county for seductive pinot noir. And that goes for brilliant rosés made from the pinot grape as well. Today’s example is from the small estate of Long Meadow Ranch Winery. Winemaker Stéphane Vivier works beautifully with these grapes that carry the […]

The scuttlebutt in the southern Rhône region of France has been 2016. This wonderful vintage of richness combined with freshness has tickled the fancy of value-oriented consumers. But 2015 and 2017 have also contributed to a “no miss” situation. However, the 2015’s are backward and require patience. The 2017 vintage […]

It was 15 years ago that the movie “Sideways” put the kibosh on merlot. It made for a good story, but many pundits and customers alike still avoid it without good reason. (Just why do some people stand in line to pay hundreds of dollars for Italy’s “Masseto,” a merlot […]

Wine geeks know there are two distinct wines that suffer name confusion. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a generous grape, and wine of the same name, produced on Italy’s southeastern coast. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is a Tuscan sangiovese from the village of Montepulciano. Confusing? Yes! But we persevere. I loved today’s […]