Review: Craft Distillers Mezcalero Release #2 San Baltazar Guelavila
First a primer on how most mezcal makes it into the U.S.: Some American gets on a plane and road-trips through Oaxaca, Mexico, tasting his way through artisan distilleries until he finds something he loves. That American then becomes an importer, and in the case of really good mezcal, sometimes only a few hundred bottles…
Review: Germain-Robin Apple Brandy
Not your father’s Applejack, Germain-Robin’s artisanal apple brandy is not cloyingly sweet but rather a fruit-tinged brandy, just as good fruit brandy should be. Dry and smooth, the nose offers vanilla and light chocolate notes, and really little more than a hint of apples. That’s right: The apple orchard takes a back seat to the…
Book Review: Bettane & Desseauve’s Guide to the Wines of France
France is probably the most complicated wine region in the world, full of viticultural areas that not only are most consumers unable to locate on a map, but which they can’t even pronounce. The thick and unwieldy Bettane & Desseauve’s Guide to the Wines of France will be of little help to most drinkers, an…
Dispatches from Aspen Food & Wine Classic 2011
“Is this your first Classic?” It was a question I’d hear more than once over the three days I spent in Aspen last month at what has become the pre-eminent annual food and wine event in America. Emphasis on food. In a single evening I encountered Mario Batali, Jacques Pepin, Jose Andres (who personally prepared…
Review: La Rochelle Pinot Noirs, 2011 Releases
Based in the Livermore Valley in central California, La Rochelle (aka LaRochelle) is a boutique wine producer with vineyards all over the state. Specializing in Pinot Noir, the winery shows how California Pinot can exhibit a huge range of styles. Don’t let the minimalist label fool you: This is great stuff. 2008 La Rochelle Pinot…
Review: Bagrationi NV Classic Brut and 2007 Reserve Brut
Bagrationi hails from a place called Georgia. Not the state, the country, which claims to have been making wine since 5000 B.C. Today Georgia isn’t so much the winemaking empire it might have been in the age of the Merimde — Googling “Georgia wine” mainly gets you wineries near Atlanta — but a few makers…
Review: Cookies & Corks — Cookies for Wine Pairing
Pairing wine with different foods is always a fun way to experience wine. Now here’s an easy — and more fun — way to do just that: With cookies customized for different wine types. Cookies & Corks produces small, boutique boxes of cookies, each bearing three different cookie types designed to pair with one of…
Tasting Report: Wente Chardonnay Wines, 2011 Releases
Wente is one of the huge names in California wine, with dozens of bottlings of just about every wine under the sun. Today we tasted through four of Wente’s Chardonnays, from the supermarket blend to the more upscale bottlings, along with Karl Wente, the winery’s chief winemaker and a fifth generation member of the Wente…
