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A Ruffino Retrospective

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
4 min read
Looking back, and ahead, with the iconic Chianti producer Lined up on the white tablecloth, the vertical Chianti tasting is a study in scarlet, from the deep ruby of the 2011 to the brick red of the 1977. It’s not every day you taste a nearly 40-year-old wine – for many

Undiscovered Uruguay

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
4 min read
Harvest is under way and internationally known enologist Alberto Antonini is giving a master class on the coming vintage. Behind him, framed in the large windows of the new winery, a landscape of terraced vineyards unfolds under a lacy blue sky, a view reminiscent of his native Italy. But these

Remembering Peter Mondavi

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
3 min read
Peter Mondavi of Charles Krug Winery, a luminary of Napa Valley Wine, passed away recently. Palate Press remembers his legacy by revisiting this interview with columnist Michelle Locke from 2015, back when he was only 100.  Peter Mondavi. Sr. is holding a cork from a 1966 bottle of Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon,

Tangled Vines weaves a tangled web

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
3 min read
In her new book, Tangled Vines, journalist Frances Dinkelspiel does something remarkable. She turns a 10-year-old crime into a spellbinder, The crime in question is the Oct. 12, 2005, fire that ripped through the Wines Central warehouse in the San Francisco Bay area, destroying 4.5 million bottles of premium wine

Best of 2015: Irish spirit

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
4 min read
Michelle Locke has picked up some of the Palate Press spirits beat, and this year her pursuit of spirits for this publication has taken her to Mexico, Scotland, Ireland, and France. Her Irish travel piece, though, stands out since it has one of the best ledes we've ever run. “Business or pleasure?” asked

Irish spirit

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
4 min read
“Business or pleasure?” asked the garda at Dublin airport immigration control. “ I’m not sure,” I replied. “I’m here to learn about Irish whiskey.” “That can only be pleasure,” he said with a smile as he stamped my passport with a thump. He was right. My tour of Irish whiskey

The Quixotic Quest of Carlos Falcó

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
3 min read
Spain is known for volume and it’s known for value. For vaunted wines of international renown? Not as much. Carlos Falcó and his fellow members of Grandes Pagos de España would like to change that. Falcó is one of the founders of GPE, a group promoting estate-grown, terroir-driven wines – pagos

For the love of peat: 200 years of Laphroaig

Michelle Locke
Features
3 min read
There are whiskies that seduce, whiskies that inflame, whiskies that captivate. And then there are whiskies like Laphroaig, a big, briny, smoky punch in the gullet that has been winning friends, or not, for 200 years. Peat is the secret to the distinctive, love-it-or-hate-it medicinal, seaweedy character of Laphroaig (la-FRYOG,