Today is going to be good one!  I have been waiting for this morning for weeks. It is the day when the first of the spring namas arrive. I have been anticipating these unpasteurized sakes all winter--spring is one of my favorite times for nama sake. This year, the first one to arrive happens to be one of my favorites: Koshi no Homare "Pride of Koshi" from Niigata. This nama is beautiful with notes of marzipan, bitter melon…

We’ve all had that customer.  The one who wants to know wine, but is still hung up by the “Is Burgundy a grape or a region?” question.  It’s easy to get frustrated at the simplicity of questions like these, but the central idea remains the same.  The sheer memorization required to make sense of the modern wine world proves to be something of a Sisyphean task.  Within the United States, this problem…

I remember driving along the autoroute between Alsace and the Southern Rhone about a dozen years ago.  Just south of Chambery, I viewed an immense stone mass to my right, part of which seemed blasted into a crescent shape.  Before me, the rugged, snow-capped Alps, standing majestically against the beautiful cobalt sky, receded toward the distant horizon.  To my left I saw vineyards stretching up the steep and barren mountainside…

"Put simply, the Seattle sommelier scene in 2012 is as dynamic as any in the world. Local favoritism aside, when compared with the great gastronomic cities of New York or Paris or Tokyo or San Francisco (et al.), this sleepy Pacific Northwest “Big Town/Small City” features (on an entirely different scale, mind you) as fine a combination of wine service, beverage scene, food stuff access, chef talent and consumer base…

This is the first of an in-depth examination of the Loire's four main regions.

The Central Loire Vineyards: An Overview

The 5394 hectares that make up the Central Loire vineyards are not only in the centre of the Loire Valley but also are in the heart of France. The bridge over the river at Pouilly-sur-Loire marks the halfway point of the river’s long journey to the sea – 1000 kilometres (600 miles), while the small…

Part I: Using Visual Constructs to Calibrate the Structure of Wine

In Master Sommelier classes and tasting examinations we ask students to assess the structural components of wine, specifically the levels of residual sugar, alcohol, acidity and tannin as well as the length and quality of the finish.  Further, we ask them to use a scale which ranges from low on one end to high on the other with increments in between.  The…

The Germans are known to be anything but lazy. When dealing with wines from the Mosel region this “laziness doesn’t pay” develops different meanings. First of all, looking at the steep slopes and observing people climbing the vineyards to tip some shoots makes you realise that this area provides growers with only hard-earned bread. On the other hand, the tremendous diversity of styles and taste profiles of Mosel Riesling…

For over 20 years I have staged what I call The Last Supper to mark the end of vintage at Coldstream Hills, the Yarra Valley winery I founded in 1985. The wines have always come from my personal cellar, thus it has survived the changes in ownership of Coldstream Hills over that time. Since 1996 Coldstream Hills has been part of what has become Treasury Wine Estates, but that has in no way changed my attitude to Coldstream…