Laughter in the Dark: Salice Salentino Riserva 2005 (and some tips on enjoying Italian wine)

Last night I tasted the Salice Salentino 2005 Riserva by the Candido family in Puglia. Salice Salentino is the name of a style of wine made from the Italian grape, Negroamaro, found on the Salentino plain located in Puglia, the heel of the "boot" of Italy.

As Nabokov puts it, "This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling..."

Brave New World: Italian varieties and the future of Australian wine pt2

The image of Australian wine at the moment overseas is supermarket-driven, Chardonnay-championing, industry-driven pah! You’d be forgiven to think Australia is only a vast industrial complex run by blokes in white coats performing Ludovico treatments on unsuspecting international wine writers who are held clockwork-oranged, wires holding their eyes and mouths open to drink high-alcohol wine full of splinters.

Lifting the fog: Pannell, Nebbiolo and the future of Australian wine Pt1

For a brief moment, I did an internship as a curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Like most internships it was unpaid, part of the reason why I started working in wine sales. Apart from that, one of the best things I learned from my time working as an intern curator in an art gallery was learning to ask questions beyond whether I liked or I didn't like a piece of artwork.

Grey Free State: Mornington Peninsula Pinot Gris

"....(it was) a spectral grey, as if all the colour has been sucked out by the sun." - Bruce Chatwin in "Anatomy of Restlessness"

There is a concept in philosophy called the grey area which is a concept for which one is unsure which category in which to place it.