How to love vermouth
Most people don't realize that vermouth IS wine: that's the beginning of the problem.
Blind Tasting: Unreliable but Necessary
Blind tasting is an artificial experience, but it's essential for critics. It's the only fair way to discover unknown wines, and to judge famous wines without succumbing to reputation.
A Compromise to End the War Over the 100-Point Scale
Compromise is in the air these days. The rockets have quieted in the Middle East. Republicans are talking about taxes while Democrats entertain cuts in entitlement spending. President Obama is having lunch with...
A very (very) sensible book : a review of How to Love Wine by Eric Asimov
It would be hard to fault Eric Asimov for taking shortcuts or being too categorical in his new book, How to Love Wine. The New York Times’ wine critic is a careful man, who doesn’t hide his opinions but does ex...
Struggling with Wine Tasting Notes
I have strong opinions about the elements of a good tasting note. But while I love a good argument, I have stayed out of this one because I don't feel comfortable telling other people how to write them.
No Boundaries: Reflections on the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers
Two weeks ago I returned home from The Symposium for Professional Wine Writers, held at the Meadowood Napa in St. Helena the week prior to Premiere Napa Valley. I’m still not sure what I was doing there, but no one kicked me out and I sure wasn’t going to say anything.
Natural Wine: On a Practical Note…: Redux
So here I was, last spring, talking away with the recently-departed Marcel Lapierre, the Beaujolais vigneron who was one of the dominant figures of the natural wine movement in its strictest definition—organic in the vineyard, wine made with grape juice only, nothing added (not even sulfur), nothing taken out. And as we got into discussing the risks of wild fermentations without sulfur, I asked him what he recommended doing if a fermentation went off in the wrong direction, with undesirable microorganisms like Brettanomyces taking over the wine’s development.
The Best of the Press, Volume I
We are tremendously proud to release The Best of the Press, Volume I, the first book under the Palate Press imprint. The Best of the Press, Volume I is a collection of the very best stories from the first year of Palate Press: The online wine magazine.