Nov 18, 2014
There are all sorts of examples of books that just keep appearing, edition after edition after edition. There are really only two ways of looking at this phenomenon: 1) The book is old hat, but they just keep putting it out because it’s well-known and that’s good enough for the publisher, or 2) The book remains among the best of its type. There is no fine line here. A book that is among the best of its type is easily…
Oct 1, 2014
The key to conducting any “taste-off” or comparison tasting is creating a rigorous process so that as many factors that might lead to bias are filtered out of the effort and the results. Because our tasting process for this comparison of different beverages was in fact rigorous and as finely tuned as possible, it can be said with a high degree of confidence that the results should prove a tremendously helpful guide for those 4 month-olds seeking out a beverage…
Sep 16, 2014
As far as I can tell, there is only one reason to understand the vocabulary of wine; those words and phrases that attempt to describe the experience of tasting a wine: To be able to communicate with others about the experience. Of course, that one reason is an important one since the idea of two wine lovers sitting across from each other and explaining why they like a particular wine by saying “because” isn’t really a sustainable conversation. In his…
Sep 12, 2014
The Washington Times published an article outlining the commitment at the National Institute of Health to researching alcohol-related issues. My favorite alcohol-related study funded by the NIA is one in which Yale University and Arizona State University were given $154,688 to determine if drinking excess amounts of alcohol leads to losing more money while gambling. Heck, I could have confirmed the answer to this question was “yes”, and would have only charged them $100,000. But what’s clear from reading the…
Jul 30, 2014
One would think it is a simple matter, but it turns out it’s not. In fact, there are various theories and practices behind the writing of a wine’s full name. My approach has always been the same: Except in those instances when the wine is to be written alongside a relatively few others of the same brand, then one ought to write the name of a wine in such a way that most easily allows the reader to find what…