Pale Fire Part II – Riesling

Pale Fire Part II – Riesling

My previous post from April 23rd was the first of two about a recent trip to Austria. In it, I focused on Grüner Veltliner and favorite wines tasted during the trip. In this second and concluding installment, the focus shifts to Riesling. Stephen Brooks’ The Wines of...
Butterscotch on a picnic table

Butterscotch on a picnic table

The other night with dinner we enjoyed the first bottle out of my cellar in over seven years. Allow me to explain—and full disclosure here. When we moved from San Francisco back to New Mexico in August of 2017, two things didn’t make the trip: over a thousand LPs and...
Pale Fire: Part I

Pale Fire: Part I

I remember when I first got into wine eons ago. I had just moved to San Francisco, so was only an hour and change from Napa and Sonoma. No surprise that I initially cut my teeth on California wine, which didn’t involve learning any classifications or Byzantine wine...
Gin and beef

Gin and beef

I’m not a big gin drinker. But my wife Carla likes the occasional Martini. I made one for her the other night using Plymouth 80-proof. Plymouth is also my go-to gin for Negronis with Carpano Antica the vermouth of choice and the required Campari. Negroni aside,...
Personal Tasting Strategies Part III: Palate

Personal Tasting Strategies Part III: Palate

In the last post I detailed my internal strategies for smelling a glass of wine. As I mentioned, I think smell is by far the most important aspect of tasting. So I do most of the work assessing a wine on the nose. By the time I taste a wine, I’m only doing two things:...
Personal Tasting Strategies Part II: Smell

Personal Tasting Strategies Part II: Smell

In the last post I explained my internal strategies for looking at a glass of wine in the context of using the deductive tasting grid. At one point I mentioned I thought that the nose of a wine—or smell—was by far the most important aspect of tasting. If anything,...