Fine Wine Writing by Jonathon Alsop
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IN VINO VERITAS Fine Wine Writing by Jonathon Alsop
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Wine Column Sunday, July 6, 2008  TURTLE CREEK WINERYA garagiste grows in Lincoln MA... "As anyone who's ever written a piece of software or owned a French car will tell you, there's more than one way to do almost anything, even things we've been doing for a long, long time. Like making wine, for instance..." Now in Edible Boston Magazine MARCH MADNESS! Not to be missed: Two Buck Chuck versus Opus One... "Brackets and match-ups are being announced all over the place, and there's no reason wine should be left out of the tournament action..."  SHOW ME THE WINE LOVE!It may be too late for flowers on Valentine's Day, but it's never too late for wine... "Wine fans want to receive the gift of wine -- it's as simple as that -- not another decanter or velveteen vino sack or any of the other doo-dads and hoo-haws you see in gift shops..."  EXPO RISING2007 Boston Wine Expo Guide "Advice for having a successful Wine Expo experience is essentially the same advice your mother gives you every time you leave the house: Do you have a sweater? Did you eat? And how are you going to get home?" Now in Beverage Business Magazine LET THE HARVEST BEGIN... IN JANUARY!? Ice wine is the ultimate late harvest wine, but this vintage is even later than most... "Thanks to the El Nino effect and what we understand today to be a general trend toward global warming, this year's ice wine harvest at the Inniskillin Winery in Canada's famous Niagara, Ontario wine region didn't begin until January 16."  DRINKABLE BOSTONImporting Boston's wine culture... "Thanks to its geographic position -- equidistant from both California and Europe -- Boston receives both more and more interesting wines than many other parts of the country..." Now in Edible Boston Magazine  LABEL GAZINGThere's a load of info on a wine label, if only you knew what it all meant... "People who otherwise understand, at least in summary, what E=mc2 means, claim they cannot figure out a wine label. Does this really mean a wine label is more difficult to understand than E=mc2, or does it just feel that way?" WINE FULL OF DOLLARS Sometimes, it's not all about the Benjamins... "People think because I'm a wine writer, I'm some kind of super-consumer, pumped up on anabolic steroids and drinking $50 bottles of wine every night. In fact, I'm a lot like most wine lovers, willing to open an $8 or $10 bottle of wine on a Tuesday night, but rarely more..."  WINE, CORK, AND THE SIZE OF A BABY'S HEADIn analog technologies, form follows failure... "When you see how small, light, and compact some of these new wine closures are, you have to wonder why a cork is so big. It's doing the same job as the screwcap or the glass cap, but in comparison, it's huge. If my math is right, 10,000 corks take up about half a cubic yard in volume alone..."  RE-THINKING BEAUJOLAISIt's way more than nouveau, we just don't know it yet... "Beaujolais hits the trifecta for potentially confusing Old World wine: it's the name of a grape, a wine, and a geographical region in France, all at the same time...." FREEDOM FROM WINE Wine, Thanksgiving, and the American character... "I have a big problem with Norman Rockwell's famous painting, Freedom From Want. There's not a glass of wine within a hundred miles of this Thanksgiving table..."  EVER CHANGING WINEFor all its tradition, wine is still evolving... "Wine has been around about 8,000 years, so far as we can tell. Granted, that's a long time, but compared with something like the Pleistocene Epoch, our Wine Era is only a tick or two of the second hand..."  SPRING INTO WINESpring is warming up, but it's still winter in California wine country... "It's hard to believe Boston and Rome are on nearly the same parallel -- about 42 degrees north. It just stopped snowing here a couple of weeks ago, and it's been spring for about the last 15 minutes..." TOO MUCH OF A GOOD WINE Growers predict a scary glut, I foresee a bottle in every fridge... "California grape growers warn a glut of wine is only a harvest or two away. Brace yourself for the really bad news: if this happens, California wine could be even more plentiful and affordable than it is right now..."  F.W.O.T.B.Fine wine on a tight bugdet... "The very first wines I ever drank independent of parental supervision were cheap Chiantis that came packaged in a woven wicker basket..." WHAT A SPARKLING NEW YEAR! Looking into the future through a glass of bubbles... "I know it is going to be a great year, because I'm at the beginning of it, with a glass of delicious sparkling wine in my hand..."  QUESTIONS & ANSWERSFrequently asked questions, frequently given answers... "Beginners ask interesting questions in wine class, questions that some of us super-duper advanced-level wine lovers know better than to ask..." DAYS OF WINE AND CHOCOLATE Tasting chocolate with a wine lover's palate... "When it comes to chocolate class, I'm like the person at the wine tasting who's never really drunk wine and wonders what all the fuss is about..." CHANGING COLORS OF WINE Autumn wines change with the seasons... "Botanists understand the shortening days of fall -- or is it the lengthening nights? -- are the trigger to deciduous trees to cut off their leaves. Our wine drinking changes color in the fall as well..."  GERMANIA, Part IWhat the Rhine means to wine... "In the US today, the image of German food and wine is where Italian cuisine was 20 or 30 years ago..." GERMANIA, Part II History and hedonism at Schloss Johannisberg... "Insignificance is too big a word to describe how I felt as I descended the stone stairway to the ancient cellars of Schloss Johannisberg..." ORDER IN THE COURT! Have your wine and ship it too... "Prohibition's 85 year long hold on American wine culture has ended with May's Supreme Court ruling, and other peripheral wine laws will surely fall now as well..." STEMS AND SEEDS "Mondovino" in a world of cinematic pain... "Jonathan Nossiter's 2004 documentary sees nothing but bad behavior in the present and ruin in the future for wine..."  NEW AMERICAN PINOT-PHILEPinot noir enjoys a post-Oscar bounce... "'Sideways' has created a frenzy for pinot noir as if the grape itself had won an award at Sundance. It is obvious pinot noir will never go on sale again in our lifetimes..." FRENCH WOMEN DON'T GET DRUNK In Europe, wine means food... "Returning vacationers -- usually first-timers to Europe -- report that the French (or Italians or Portuguese) drink wine with every meal, even lunch, and amazingly do not get drunk..." | |
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© 1988-2008 by Jonathon Alsop 336 Washington St. Brookline MA 02445-6850 617-784-7150 jalsop@invinoveritas.com Guarantee of Privacy Copyright Reminder |