Bordeaux and Burgundy: both French, both delicious, both wonderful, both so different. Continue reading “Bordeaux-Burgundy 10-21-2015”
Category: Recent Columns
Wine costs 10-14-2015
Wine cost is a puzzlement. What is difference between $5 bottle, $50 bottle, $500 bottle? Continue reading “Wine costs 10-14-2015”
Wine-food science 10-7-2015
Wine is enjoyable for many reasons. In addition to regaling your palate, when sipped with friends wine lubricates conversation, promotes bonhomie and arouses warm feelings about the world in general. Wine drinkers appreciate all those good things. Continue reading “Wine-food science 10-7-2015”
Big data 9-30-2015
Big data is big nowadays. Big, really big—just look at the data.
When it comes to wine, however, big data is problematic because wine’s big data is bewildering. Continue reading “Big data 9-30-2015”
Parker 9-23-2015
Robert Parker. Like New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys, you either revile with corrosive intensity or adore with hagiographic veneration.
Arguably, Robert Parker made wine what it is today in U.S. The 100-point scale—his transformative gimmick—is why America is world’s largest consumer of wine. We were timid neophytes before. He made it possible for barefoot Pilgrim consumers to pretend they knew what they were doing.
Continue reading “Parker 9-23-2015”
Wine stains 9-16-2015
Drink enough red wine and you are going to spill red wine. On clothes, tablecloths, rugs, maybe all of the above in one big, dramatic cataclysm.
What do you do?
Continue reading “Wine stains 9-16-2015”
Sauv blanc 9-9-2015
Sauvignon blanc ranks as world class wine after once being associated with poorboy plonk or snooty French names no one understood. Long, strange journey.
Continue reading “Sauv blanc 9-9-2015”
Sangria 9-2-2015
Labor Day is “so-long-to-summer” portal, although veteran Texans know hot days will not end soon.
Kids, however, are back in school or going off to college and this is the last big outdoor party, pool, lake, tank-top, flip-flop weekend before the harvest festival feasts. In short, sangria sayonara time. Continue reading “Sangria 9-2-2015”
Cork conundrum
An effete wine server ostentatiously extracts the cork and pretentiously presents it to you. Now what?
Do you studiously examine the cork for flaws? Smell it? Lick it?
Continue reading “Cork conundrum”
Foil capsules
A wine bottle’s foil (or faux foil) cap is an almost-anachronism.
Today, the cap usually is an unnecessary obstacle to opening the bottle. It serves little purpose other than a branding opportunity for the maker and a chance for your wine server to show off. Continue reading “Foil capsules”