Our brain’s ability to store visual images in memory and more or less instantly compare them with new inputs for similarities and dissimilarities is impressive. Rather than deal with the many individual features each memory contains, we find it more efficient to stitch the bits together into patterns we can more readily utilize. Recent research…
Since You Ask
Why is there something rather than nothing? Why are you yourself and not someone else? Where do babies come from? Such good questions! Big thanks to all of you who send these, and many like them, to us in the mail every week. They’re potent reminders that from time to time it’s necessary to turn our attention to…
The Old Timey-est of Them All?
You know by now that the Wine Corner cherishes a special fondness for winemakers with a historical consciousness; the kind of people who have a healthy respect for the old ways, even while making what is now considered cutting-edge, contemporary wine. So how delighted were we when earlier this week we had our first experience…
Minus Shirt and Tie
Gone are the days when This Week in the Wine Corner was must-hear radio — when my predecessor, mentor and BFF Edward R. Murrow (above with mike and ciggie) intoned the Formaggio Kitchen news from CBS studios in New York. Families all over America gathered around the wireless to hear our most respected broadcast journalist warn about the…
Meet Me at the Café
When the exotic beverage known as coffee first appeared in Europe in the second half of the 17th century, inns, taverns, alehouses, pubs and caterers of every description were already well-entrenched. While the restaurant* was yet to be invented, there were nonetheless plenty of places to get a drink, meal or a snack. Early coffee…
Literary Bulletin
Hello to all TWWC enthusiasts and boo-birds (endeavoring to be even-handed, here!). It’s a great pleasure to announce the soon-to-be publication of my new multi-volume book of essays, the harvest of my many years of research in the writing of all those This Week in the Wine Corner missives some of you sort of enjoy.…
The Lure of Elsewhere
We’ve written before about the number of grape varieties at work in our world — many more than people imagine. Beyond the now thoroughly exploited (and, frankly, rather humdrum) varietals Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Sauvigon Blanc, many hundred of others are regularly used to make wine of varying quality. We hear less from…
What a Dog Show Can Teach Us About Wine
Does winemaking resemble dog breeding? It’s a provocative question but not a facetious one. The thought came to me while having lunch with an old friend (now in his eighties) who groused “that not enough Chablis today tastes like Chablis.” For him, a quality wine must always taste like what it is. But what exactly is Chablis? The…
Made to Measure
Does it strike you as strange that so much talk about wine is about wine talk itself? There’s certainly plenty to be said about somm (that’s sommelier) speak with its arcane vocabulary and bizarre syntax. One often hears the complaint that people writing and talking about wine are employing a kind of autonomous language (or just gibberish) and that…
Where Did My Wine Go?
It’s a question we’re often called upon to answer. It’s true enough that we sometimes move things around a bit to keep the Wine Corner looking fresh, a practice that can leave our clientèle scratching their heads when unable to quickly spot something they’re looking for. But this is a situation that’s quickly put right. More…
The Grapes That Fall Along the Way
We always make room to talk about the romantic side of wine — all the beautiful places and interesting people responsible for bringing it into being. We speak much less about the sometimes punishing, almost always unglamorous labor involved in producing it. Unpredictable weather patterns are not making the work easier. Early flowering makes vines vulnerable to…
Not Since Lunch
The place names Bordeaux and Burgundy may be the most well-known in the wine world. Even people with no wine experience at all know of them and with good reason. Each began its wine-obsessed life shortly after the Roman conquest of what is today France; Each is mainly famous for its red wine; Each is a prime object…