supersonic: Mac Forbes' 2006 Woori Yallock Pinot Noir

Terroir

A good friend from Australia told me a story. After the Hospice de Beaune Auction in Burgundy he had driven down to the Rhone Valley. While there, he managed to cajole the reluctant Rhone winemakers to take a quick drive with him to Piemonte as it was “only a few hours drive over the mountains”. At first, the idea shocked the Rhone winemakers. Italy?! For my Australian friend, it was nothing, not even the distance from one Australian capital city to the next. They did it; and to this day, the winemakers from Rhone, Piemonte and Australia laugh about it and are all still friends.

Controversial Freisa: why this is an important wine varietal

“They can be fussy, unreconstructed; most of them don’t want to go along to get along. They have an attitude, an edge.” – Randall Grahm, Preface to Wines of Italy, Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology

There comes an evolution in the taste buds when tasting wine and that can be summed up in one word: bitterness. Bitterness is an acquired taste. A five year old does not like bitterness. Did you ever mistake a cold bottle of Indian Tonic Water with Schweppes Lemonade on a hot summers day as a child?

Diary of a Riesling Lover

Riesling Redux: April 3 - July 5, 2010

Riesling is something to turn to when the world gets too busy and crazy.

Riesling, especially German Riesling, is not easy, outside of the common push and shove of the marketplace, a tonic to the mad prices of Bordeaux En Primeur this year, which has been the background machine-hum to the following notes.

What is a 'vino da meditazione'?

I love reading wine tasting notes in Italian. I always want to sing it back. For example, What is a vino da meditazione? It's an intriguing term often seen in Italian wine notes.

It looks like the word "meditation", but it's not quite.