ShareI love this wine because it reminds me of the sea. Indeed, the part of the world it comes from enjoys a strong maritime influence: warm summer days, but cool nights, with lots of fog and rain. (This region gets so much precipitation, actually, that in many of its older vineyards the vines are supported [...]

ShareMy wife likes to tease me by saying that I “woefully under-decant.” I don’t think so. But it is true that I rarely decant. And I admit that a few times I’ve been burned by not decanting — take the example of the Glen Carlou 2005 Grand Classique I wrote about recently. In fact, the [...]

Share“Weird.” That’s what I thought when I first tasted Glen Carlou’s 2005 Grand Classique, a Bordeaux-style red blend from South Africa. It displayed such strong notes of game, doused campfire, and rusty iron, it made me think of an old farm. So I had a glass, vacuum-stopped the bottle, then revisted the next day — [...]

ShareI’m still scratching my head over the 2005 Orin Swift “Papillon” we ordered at Elway’s Steak House in Denver — and almost rejected because the bottle is so repulsive! It would have been the first time I’d sent a wine back because the label made my stomach turn.
Good thing we tamped down our revulsion, because [...]

ShareA bottle of 2001 Cornas from August Clape got me wondering recently about a thing called bottle variation. You see, the Cornas was a show stopper. My notes read: “Mouth-watering aromas of green olives and black fruit. A huge syrah, rich, maybe a little monolithic, but with loads of ripe plum and distinct olive and [...]

ShareAlthough it’s the most widely-planted red wine grape in Italy and serves as the main ingredient in Chianti, sangiovese is a really misunderstood piece of fruit. Part of it is the fault of Chianti, actually, since many people think it’s a varietal made of the chianti grapes. Actually, there’s no such thing: Chianti is not [...]

ShareWhy, oh, why didn’t I buy two bottles? I took a 2003 Sesti Brunello di Montalcino for a test run (in preparation for our all-sangiovese tasting tonight at the Ladies Tasting Society), loved every drop, and then didn’t have enough time to zip back to Berkeley to get another. If I had one to bring [...]