Because wine is both good to drink and good to think
hello Bottlers. Still on vacay in remotest Vermont and fresh from an interview with Ann Marie Gardner — whose first issue of Modern Farmer magazine (a quarterly) appeared in April. The new publication is quite unlike anything I’ve seen before, with the visual appeal of Saveur, the kind of gritty detail you would find in a bulletin from the…
Ever since the center of gravity of quality wine production moved north in the centuries after the Roman conquest of the non-Germanic regions of Europe, the struggle to ripen grapes (never an issue in the more ancient vineyards of the Aegean, Southern Turkey, and Syria-Palestine) has been winemaking’s central problem. Historically, in Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne,…
September 3, 2014 – The fascinations of wine. August 8, 2014 – Rudy Kurniawan wine fraud denouement; Danny Meyer and Michael Kors interview; Erika Szymanski on why yeasts make alcohol. July 27, 2014 – Useful analogies. July 18, 2014 – On the Fruits and Vegetables School of wine writing. July 11, 2014 – The crimes…
There was a time in our wineshop when we took pains to identify wines made with organically farmed grapes or via the method known as biodynamics. And there was good reason for this. We’re located in a community with a high level of awareness about food-supply issues. Our clientele wants to know where its food…
The Georgians – and here I refer to those denizens of the Caucasus Mountains rather than the inhabitants of the sprawling suburbs of Atlanta — claim to be on vintage no. 8000, or thereabouts. If true, their boast sets the origin of wine culture deep into the era we call the neolithic and makes wine older than…
hello Bottlers. When I taught a two-semester course in the history of food in the BU graduate gastronomy program, I used to joke that the description for it in the catalog should read: All the things you can do with food besides eat it. As you might guess from this, the course was heavily tilted…
hello Bottlers. As you all know the inventory in our shop tilts heavily in the direction of wines made in a naturalist style, and favors winemakers who espouse organic and often biodynamic farming practices. For some of our guests this is an important distinction and a reason they are loyal to us. For others not…
hello Bottlers. As you may know I’ve been tracking the 2013 vintage at three New England wineries on my personal blog. I visited Kip Kumler at Turtle Creek in Lincoln last week to return a piece of equipment and get a quick update. He was in the process of putting up bird netting in his…
hello Bottlers. I visited Vermont winemaker Deirdre Heekin earlier this week at their Garden of Eden-like farm in Barnard. Heekin and husby Caleb Barber own Woodstock restaurant Pane e Salute. Much of what they offer at the resto is grown on the farm. Deidre runs the front of the house and is responsible for one…
We’ll be posting a piece on the CB blog (italltastesthesametome.com) tomorrow morning that documents our carbonic maceration winemaking experiment. It was fun, and since it was my first try at making wine, a rather surprising one. I’ve been thinking since about what I learned from the project – or at least had powerfully reinforced. Here…