The joy of grapes
One very fruitful way to learn about wine is to see (better, to smell and taste) what happens to wine grapes at three stages: at their harvest, when made into...
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Grapes of cool
We often forget that wine grapes are fruit, just like apples and pears. When we behold the elixir we call wine — held there in its perfect glass, aura of...
What to sip with …
One surefire white wine match with lobster is one of the more difficult wines to pair with food overall: New World chardonnay. The general lack of acidity and tropical fruit...
What’s in a vintage?
Price check, year-end bubbles. Mumm Napa Brut Sparkling Wine, nonvintage: $19. Mumm Napa Brut Sparkling Wine, vintage 2007: $28. Bellavista Franciacorta Cuvee, nonvintage: $48. Bellavista Franciacorta, vintage 2006: $69. Pol...
What’s in a vintage?
Price check, year-end bubbles. Mumm Napa Brut Sparkling Wine, nonvintage: $19. Mumm Napa Brut Sparkling Wine, vintage 2007: $28. Bellavista Franciacorta Cuvee, nonvintage: $48. Bellavista Franciacorta, vintage 2006: $69. Pol...
How to pair wine
Bacon makes everything that it's eaten with, from eggs to ice cream, just taste better. One reason is its salt, of course, but another is its high glutamate content, a...
Wines for Thanksgiving leftovers
I am the eldest of nine kids. When I was growing up, the family was a dozen at the dinner table, if you counted the Great Dane underneath. My mother's...
How to pair wine
Traditional food and wine pairing advice considered eggs to be the great bugbear to any successful match. Their viscous fat, the way it coated the palate, precluded any wine getting...
This week: Fruity
A busy dish, this is, with lots going on, many elements in play. That opens possibilities for wine pairings, too, but keep uppermost in mind the sweetness and acidity in...
Wines for the grand feast
No crazier culinary quilt do we weave than our annual Thanksgiving Day dinner. Most known life-forms are present on (or at) the table, many of them garroted by gravy. Thanksgiving...