Wine + Spirits
For me, it’s fascinating to see a wineglass, a decanter, a wine bottle that sat on a dining table hundreds of years ago. It might be plain and thick and unevenly shaped. It might be thin and delicate and rimmed with gold. At the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York, I was fascinated [...]
In London they have a Champagne Grand Tasting every year. Why is this the first time it’s come to the US? This year the New York Champagne Grand Tasting was held in a beautifully decorated, small ballroom at New York’s Plaza Hotel. Here’s a snapshot of some of the finest champagnes I sampled: Alfred Gratien [...]
Continue reading about Champagne Grand Tasting: Old Friends and New Discoveries
Sort of a cliché, but on St. Patrick’s Day while waiting for our corned beef and cabbage dinner to finish cooking, I got out the Irish whiskey. In this case, a special bottle: Bushmills 1608, created to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the original license to distill in the Bushmills area. It’s a smooth whiskey [...]
One of my favorite things about Bertani, the Amarone producer, is that they make available their vintage Amarones from just about any year in the last half-century. Anyone can order one through the distributor, and the prices are in the $$ hundreds, not $$$ thousands – great for celebrating special occasions. Recently, soft-spoken Bertani winemaker [...]
Continue reading about Amarone from any year? How about 1980!
Having just returned from the annual Sicilia en primeur event, I find myself swimming in impressions about what’s happening on this island. Or is it a continent on its own? The further from the mainland you get, the more you feel you’re on a separate continent, a crosswind of cultures set out in the Mediterranean [...]
Continue reading about Two Sicilies – Wines from Etna and Ragusa
Listening to people making plans for Vinitaly – the frighteningly large, annual Italian wine fair in Verona — reminds me that I met the organizers, CEO Giovanni Mantovani and Stevie Kim in New York this winter. Along with Cristina Mariani-May of Banfi and Marilisa Allegrini of Allegrini Wines, they co-hosted fundraising events that culminated in [...]
Continue reading about Vinitaly, NASDAQ, Banfi, Allegrini — and me
What’s going on in Burgundy right now? Here’s a photo Alex Gambal sent of the first day’s work in one of his newly-acquired vineyards – in the areas of Batard-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. He also bought a house “on the square in Santenay that will be turned into a guest and rental residence.” Hoping it’s [...]
