Archive for the ‘Terroir’ Category
Great wine content doesn't die. It just gets re-platformed. This is the case with much of the important reference content on AppellationAmerica.com. Today, the recently launched Appellation America App (for the iPhone), provides mobile users with one of the best sources of appellation and grape variety descriptons in one place. For those of you who do not recall the Appellation America website, it was among the most impressive online wine publishing ventures I'd ever conceived. I really got to know…
Noob: So when these wine experts taste wines, it's not just a matter of whether they just like it I see. It looks like there are 100 different levels of quality. Me: You mean the 100 Point system? Yes. Well, No. The 100 Point system is really a 50 point system because no wine is given 50 points. That's really the starting point. Noob: So when a wine is rated 88 Points out of 100 points the wine has really…
Biodynamics is about as intellectually coherent a philosophy for grapegrowing as Alchemy is a coherent source of precious metals. If you disagree, then read this formerly active, yet highly coherent, set of posts on the issue of biodynamic farming. One thing is for sure, however. Raymond Paccot, of Domaine La Colombe in Switzerland, as well as others at the recent convention of the Academie du Vin, will disagree. According to Paccot: "Biodynamic winemakers represent a 'resistance' movement. They are at…
Something happened on the way to the the 2nd Annual "West of the West Wine Festival": Fort Ross-Seaview, a new American Viticultural Area, was approved by the Federal Government and further refined the meaning of the region celebrated and promoted by a band of California vintners dedicated to the idea that reality is better than fantasy. First, the fantasy: The Sonoma Coast American Viticultural Area. This monumentally large and meaningless federally approved appellation encompasses more than 500,000 acres in the…
The latest article at “Bigger Than Your Head”, a blog maintained by long-time wine writer Frederic Koeppel, is evidence of many things, not the least of which is Frederic’s talent to compose an excellent essay. It demonstrates why, after having won two Wine Blog Awards for “Best Wine Reviews”, his blog also ought to be considered for “Best Writing” on a Wine Blog. But this latest article, “Wine & Vulgarity”, also demonstrates the extent to which judgement of the most…
