Archive for the ‘Terroir’ Category
You’d think that a hedonistic, history buff, with a penchant for travel and consumption like me would be absolutely satisfied with a career in the wine industry. Don’t get me wrong, I am satisfied. But there is always that question, what would you do if you could do it over again? (Of course the corollary question is why CAN’T you do it over again? That’s another blog post)I would do it different. I would become a cheesemonger/cheese importer. I’ve known…
I hesitated to provide the quote below. The reason is that it suggests that the article written by Clark Smith at Appellation America is not the best, most thoughtful exploration of "The Big Wine" phenomenon yet written. In fact, that’s what it is. Rather, by providing this quote, it suggests that Clark’s "Some Like It Hot" article is just one more lobbing of a bomb. It’s not. It’s much more. However, this small piece of Clark’s article, which does indicate…
There seems to be no stopping Pinot Noir. Years after "Sideways" put the variety on the map for the average wine drinker and sales of the wine soared, we still are seeing healthy year over year increases in its sales. When Americans discover something new, and something they like, they tend to embrace it, don’t they. One of the better Pinot-centric events is "Pinot On The River". One of the ways by which one can be confident an event will…
I love American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). They help make a PR Guy like me busy. That’s why my heart was wounded when the Tax & Trade Bureau (TTB) of the U.S. Treasury Department, the agency that approves and regulates AVAs, announced a few weeks ago that they were suspending all new approvals or consideration of new AVAs…pending some sort of review of the process I’ve been wanting to write about this wound to my heart for some time but have…
Now here’s something that would never happen in America: A French consumer group is making a serious complaint that wines from AOC-approved regions in France don’t taste they way they think they are supposed to, leading to recommendations that stricter standards be set for identifying wines that can actually carry said appellations on their label. Yet this is exactly the claim that a French consumer group is making concerning the country’s AOC wines. Specifically, the group—UFC-Que Choisir—claims that pressure to…
