The Wine Idea

Birds gotta fly, vines gotta climb. It’s the way of things, and for most of the history of winemaking, it proved convenient to give domesticated grapevines the opportunity to do what comes naturally to them in the wild by planting them alongside trees. The advantages of this strategy are obvious.  A vine that could embrace…

An unexplained interest in the categorory of functional foods having recently gripped me, I uncovered a couple of New York Times stories that proved helpful.  One, Dessert, Laid-Back and Legal, from 2011 reported on processed snacks containing melatonin; another, Foods with Benefits, or So They Say, attempted to shed light on the murky world of health claims in…

Real journalism isn’t created in newsrooms, but in the places where news actually happens.  That’s why from time to time your intrepid correspondent packs his duffel, dons trench coat and fedora, and sets off to get the story.  And so, when earlier this week the rare opportunity arose to cop an interview with (HELLO!!) the…

A few months ago, I said something in this spot about having multiple bottles open at a time being a sign of a certain maturity in your wine drinking. The title of the post was “The Wine Cellar in Your Kitchen.” In it, I talked about the value of comparative tasting – sampling several wines…

God rest ye merry, he/she/they; Let nothing you dismay. Keep the faith and with good cheer Make glad your holiday.   Kwanza, Solstice, Christmas Tide Choose one (or more) above. Or none of these, if you aver It’s Hanukkah you love.   Hang a stocking, deck the hall, Drape some tinsel over all. Burn a yule log, roast a goose; Put that gift wrap to good…

It’s very likely that the first thing you learned about wine, even before you were old enough to have tasted any, is that it comes in two colors, red and white. Like lots of other stories we’re told as children, this one is too simplistic to be either useful or true. But it is, God…

Most of us turn to wine, if not as a vehicle of relaxation, at least as a gateway to it. If you’ve gone so far as to acquire the apéritif habit, the first glass of the day typically marks the moment you’ve set work aside and begun the slow, evening unwind. Later, there may be…

The picture above isn’t abstract expressionist art you might encounter in a Newbury Street gallery. It’s a thermal image of a section of the North Atlantic. The warm Gulf Stream appears as a red-orange streak separating the Sargasso Sea from the colder continental shelf. Coldest water is bluest; warmest is deepest red. Thermal imaging takes phenomena…

What accounts for the originality of a wine – the critical thing or things that makes it what it is and different from others?  To ask the question is to reopen an investigation as old as wine itself. Because the earliest written references identify wine by its geographical source (and most European wine is still…

Here in the FKC Wine Corner we’re frequently asked for recommendations — and we do our best to respond to them individually and thoughtfully. Often, your reco requests are pretty routine; sometimes not so much. It’s one thing to suggest a red wine around $20 to serve with your roast chicken at home, quite another to propose something…

Browsing for some information about an old Bordeaux (the 1967 Château Beychevelle) a while ago led me to a 1973 New York Magazine story whose banner you see above. The author, Romanian-born Alexis Bespaloff, wrote about wine for the magazine from 1972 to 1996. Bespaloff may be better known as the man who took over as editor…

Is wine art or craft? It’s the kind of question that can seem fun to knock around when the evening grows late and the company is the sort to have opinions and enjoy airing them out.  I’ve gone more than a few rounds with friends on this topic, and while I’m not sure I’ve been…