Palate Press nominated as Best Wine Blog

The nominees for the Wine Blog Awards were announced today, and Palate Press was nominated as Best Overall Wine Blog. You can vote for us HERE. Congratulations are due to Palate Press Editors and Contributors, and members of The Palate Press Advertising Network. We dominated the nominations, with at least one site in every category, [...]

Good Vapors, or Finding the Hearts in Stumptown’s Distillery Row

Moving to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, I fully expected to be surrounded by heavenly coffee, fantastic food, killer microbrews, and world-class Pinot noir. Lots of Pinot noir. What I did not expect was to discover a thriving scene of locally produced spirits and liqueurs. A recent trip to Portland’s Distillery Row with some friends opened my eyes to a whole new world of hard drinking.

The Hill: Finding Old-World Italy in the Heart of St. Louis

Visitors to St. Louis often want to go see the Arch, or take in a Cardinals game. But for our guests who are up for more than just the usual tourist sites, one of the places I take them, particularly if they’re foodies or lovers of urban neighborhoods, is The Hill.

Farm Versus Fish: Water Use in the Russian River Valley

It takes guts to grow premium wine grapes—plus a sizable amount of cash, a love of farming, and the fortitude to deal with the ongoing challenges, both environmental and political, of producing a great glass of wine. Frost may not be the biggest of a grower’s concerns, but it has become a vexing problem here in California’s Russian River Valley, where the rights of farmers sometimes go head to head with the rights of fish.

From Connoisseur to Entrepreneur: Five Days as a Wine Store Manager

I’m starting to think that maybe law isn’t my thing. This worries me. I had dragged myself through three years of college pre-med before I realized doctors don’t get Cs and Ds in organic chemistry. So I landed in law school in DC, but now instead of spending my days reading antitrust law, I’m reading blogs about wine.

Chasing Winter Away with Roasted Root Vegetable Soup

Living in Boston has taught me to be suspicious of cowardly March. As winter paws at its heels and spring serenades its sights, March lingers in spells of indecision. Wavers between days that boast sunshine and sweater-shedding warmth, and others who cry gray and wet storms.

Kosher Wine for Passover: Getting More Serious Than Manischewitz

For Israeli wines, “kosher” is a blessing and a curse. Israel right now is one of the most exciting wine countries in the world. The country made almost exclusively bad sweet wine for its first 50 years, but now it’s like California of the 1970s, in a period of rapid growth and experimentation and great increases in quality. But the kosher marketing conundrum hangs over everything: how to sell Israeli wines, kosher or not, to non-Jews, a necessity if the industry is to sustain its present growth.

A Delicate Balance

With modern fusion cuisine and wines from new regions around the world, the choices – and confusion – are abundant. One new school of thought is that any wine goes with any dish. However, most of us don’t put ketchup on our ice cream for the same reason as we don’t drink a delicate white wine with a hearty meat dish or a powerful red wine with sole – they are mismatched flavors and textures.

A Passion for (Kiwi) Pinot

New Zealand has probably more than any other country picked up the pinot noir ball and run with it. So why is it so exciting?

The Single Wino

On the last day of December I sat and made a to-do list for 2010: eat more greens, go to yoga regularly, and find good wine packaged in single serving bottles.

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