An American’s first wine encounter in Europe can elicit surprise. It’s not that Europeans keep the best for themselves — a strangely persistent canard. Rather, it’s the temperature at which wine is served. Whites abroad are typically served a bit warmer, reds consistently cooler than Americans are used to. Is this just a matter of taste, or…
All posts in June 2023
Along for the Ride
Our brain’s ability to store visual images in memory and more or less instantly compare them with new inputs for similarities and dissimilarities is impressive. Rather than deal with the many individual features each memory contains, we find it more efficient to stitch the bits together into patterns we can more readily utilize. Recent research…
Since You Ask
Why is there something rather than nothing? Why are you yourself and not someone else? Where do babies come from? Such good questions! Big thanks to all of you who send these, and many like them, to us in the mail every week. They’re potent reminders that from time to time it’s necessary to turn our attention to…
The Old Timey-est of Them All?
You know by now that the Wine Corner cherishes a special fondness for winemakers with a historical consciousness; the kind of people who have a healthy respect for the old ways, even while making what is now considered cutting-edge, contemporary wine. So how delighted were we when earlier this week we had our first experience…
Minus Shirt and Tie
Gone are the days when This Week in the Wine Corner was must-hear radio — when my predecessor, mentor and BFF Edward R. Murrow (above with mike and ciggie) intoned the Formaggio Kitchen news from CBS studios in New York. Families all over America gathered around the wireless to hear our most respected broadcast journalist warn about the…
Meet Me at the Café
When the exotic beverage known as coffee first appeared in Europe in the second half of the 17th century, inns, taverns, alehouses, pubs and caterers of every description were already well-entrenched. While the restaurant* was yet to be invented, there were nonetheless plenty of places to get a drink, meal or a snack. Early coffee…