The streets of old Europe can be hauntingly quiet. In small villages, one can walk along cobbled corridors in the middle of a weekday afternoon and hear nothing but the breeze. The streets are lined with stone buildings, some of them homes, some of them businesses. Trousers hang to dry
This past weekend in Sonoma County, California, 17 vintners gathered for a wine tasting they dubbed “The 7 Percent Solution.” As the organizers explained, “roughly 93 percent of Northern California vineyard acreage is planted to eight major grape varietals. The remaining 7 percent is home to numerous lesser-known varietals, [which]
At this point, its reasonably common knowledge that terroir isn’t all about soil. Studies since the 1970’s have told us that wine from grapes grown on different soil types in different locations don’t necessary taste different. Nouveau chic wine critics – Steve Heimoff, Eric Asimov, W. Blake Gray, among others
In the old days, Alice Feiring knew exactly what she needed to do to launch her natural wine newsletter – find a publisher willing to give her an advance. But the old days are gone, and publishers are worrying about other things, like staying in business. So Feiring, perhaps the
Your guests have arrived, and your dinner party is bubbling along. Everyone’s twirling flutes of Champagne and nibbling canapés as they chitchat and catch up. You sit for apps, and more wine is poured. The chatter now mingles with jolly tintinnabulations of cutlery and stemware. Soon that course is through,
New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is distinctive, but why? The Science of Sauvignon Blanc by wine writer and plant science Ph.D. Jamie Goode explores a host of recent scientific research topics in many facets of sauvignon blanc prodcution. The book, funded by the New Zealand Winegrowers’ levy-funded research program, sets out to
"Is a bottle of wine ever really worth $100?" This is a question I'm regularly asked by friends who aren't obsessed with wine. My answer is always the same. "Of course," I begin. "For starters, there's supply and demand -- bottles sell for what the market says they're worth." "But
When John and I left The Wall Street Journal in 2009 after almost 12 years of writing our wine column, Tastings, we ended a marvelous run of working together: 32 years under the same roofs. During that time, we’d had a lot of lunches together in newspaper cafeterias or nearby,