The last time I saw the stunning Italian actress Virna Lisi on screen, she was having a wonderful time vamping it up as a reptilian Queen Catherine de Medici in the 1994 film adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas potboiler La Reine Margot. The photo above is from her 1965 Hollywood film debut, How to Murder…
All posts in June 2021
When the Opposite of Dry Isn’t Wet
The 5 wine questions I'm most often asked and how I answer them
Since my job is essentially to meet and chat with guests and answer their questions about wine, I have a pretty good idea of what’s on their minds. What follows are the five questions I field most often, and how I respond to them.
Do Numbers Point the Way to Better Wine? Don't Count On It
Assigning numerical scores on the 100 point scale has emerged as a standard tool for navigating the complicated world of wine. The intent to simplify may originally have been legitimate and laudable, but we’d argue that numerical scores have become the instruments of a new kind of retail tyranny that’s bad for both consumers and…
The Guessing Game The reliable markers used to identify wine are blurring
Wine has a long history, replete with fact and fancy. Over the centuries, its enthusiasts have wrapped it in a cloud of myths, tropes and what today we call memes. One of the more persistent has to do with what counts as real expertise. Who exactly is the wine connoisseur? In the popular imagination, it’s one who can…