January’s Box of Exploration Winter Wines One season, six wines, six sensational producers…explore, experience and enjoy the wines that you’ve perhaps wondered about…or revisit and reconnect with wines that you’re nearly forgotten. $150.00 (plus MD state alcohol sales tax, of course) Regular price $201.58 Navaherreros Blanco de Bernabeleva, Vino de Madrid, DO 2015 Regular price[…]
Domaine Le Roubine Vacqueyras 2014 The American wine press ‘discovered’ the wines of the Rhone Valley in the ’80’s, gushed about them in the ’90’s, dissed then in the ’00’s, and now have largely forgotten about them. No doubt, they’ve ‘discovered’ another wine region that has been making wine for 2000 years to brag on.[…]
My Favorite Wine… this week anyway Champagne Laurent-Perrier Brut Champagne is first and foremost a place, then an ideal, and only then a wine… But, as a wine, each Champagne ‘house’ has developed its own style, its own taste profile and its own signature. In the case of Laurent-Perrier, that signature can be expressed in[…]
Thomas Morey 2015 Maranges ‘La Fussiere’ Regular Price $36.99 Sale Price $29.99 As we know, French inheritance laws can sometimes crete huge rifts in families. So it was heartening that brothers Thomas and Vincent Morey amicably continued to work together for a few years before going their separate ways. Very little has changed beyond[…]
Lundeen ‘Bunker Hill’ Chardonnay, Willamette Valley, Oregon 2014 Regular price: 29.99 Sale Price: 23.99 Oregon Chardonnay has had a rough go of it. Historically, it was neither as voluptuous as its California cousin nor as elegant as its French ancestor. This one, from a tiny (5 acre) vineyard planted exclusively to Chardonnay in 1995, braves[…]
Andrea Cortonesi, owner of Uccelliera, is the only son of a farming family; he has worked in the fields since he was a teenager. Possessing a healthy respect for the past, he maintained the original name of the estate “Uccelliera” (bird house), after his purchase in 1986. “l look at my farm, and think of what it has witnessed[…]
Most people that are ‘in to’ wine can talk fairly intelligently about 5 or 6 grapes and perhaps twice that many wine regions. Wine ‘professionals’ (by this I mean the servers and bartenders that know a little bit about their restaurants’ wine list) generally have twice that much knowledge; they know a bit about a[…]
November’s Box of Exploration Wines for Thanksgiving Six wines, six sensational producers, one holiday…explore, experience and enjoy the wines that you’ve perhaps wondered about…or revisit and reconnect with wines that you’re nearly forgotten. $150.00 (inclusive of MD state alcohol sales tax) Regular price $191.77 Jean-Paul Brun Beaujolais Rosé ‘Le Rosé d’Folie’ 2016 Regular price[…]
Matilde Poggi at Le Fraghe had a problem. Her family winery, on the eastern shore of Lake Garda in Veneto, grows Corvina and Rondinella to blend into their excellent Bardolino. As the 2010 vintage was bountiful, she had more Rondinella than was usual and was unsure precisely what to do with it. Not her favorite[…]
“Vinsobres or sober wine, drink it soberly”: this was the motto of Monseigneur de Suarès (bishop of Vaison and a staunch fan of these wines) in 1633, describing this Cru from Drôme Provençal. Actually, the name probably originates from the Latin words “vin sobris” or “vin sobrio” meaning “wine and work”. Or perhaps it comes from the[…]