In Eric Asimov’s most recent column in the New York Times, he asks a question that every serious and thoughtful wine drinker should take time to consider: What makes a great wine? It’s an academic question, but one that if answered to your satisfaction should help clarify your relationship with wine. That’s no small achievement. Many of us have thought about this question in offhanded, casual ways as we buy wine to drink, to age, to give and to possess….
New research shows that one of Natural Wine’s most important claims, that it contains fewer nasty sulfites than (what do they call it? “Commercial”? “Industrial”) wines is in fact a headache-inducing circumstance. In other words, the new research shows that wines with low levels of sulfites are more likely to leave a drinker with a post-drinking headache due to the fact that these low sulfite wines have greater levels of biogenic amines, the compound likely to cause headaches. I find…
We are smack dab in the middle of Hannukah, that time when latkes make their annual appearance on Jewish tables when debates emerge as to the proper preparation for this dish and when no wine in particular is served at the Hannukah table. And why is that? Why has no one type of wine emerged as the de rigueur pour for the Hannukah table? For that matter why has no single wine become the go-to pour for Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving,…
No…No, let’s not defend bad wine. I stared at my phone with incredulity as I woofed down a morning pop tart and read Henry Jeffreys’ ode to icky wine drunk in memorable times over at PIX. Jeffreys, a man with a palate and a lover of fine wine who wants us to believe that good times past might have something to do with the wine we drank: “some of the best times in my life have been spent drinking very…
Imagine being such a whiner that you felt it necessary to issue a press release to say just how much you didn’t like an article that didn’t include your unsubstantiated propaganda. Meet the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America, the greatest source of tears and whining in the alcohol biz. The WSWA’s recent press release condemning a Daily Beast article by Susannah Skiver Barton takes issue with the fact that the WSWA’s position on interstate shipment of spirits was “misrepresented”….
