Blog Archives
Break Out The Oysters and…Red Wine?!?
I know. Oysters and red wine. It sounds so…unappealing. That is, to my particularly persnickety preferences. I do love white wine and steak. But that doesn’t seem as radical. Hey, I’m a drink-what-you-like kind of person, but bivalves and big reds are one of the very few things I can’t get behind. So I was [More]
Valpolicella in Venice: The Talented Mr. Ripley
When I read Social Creature, then perused the reviews on Goodreads, I was surprised by the vitriol from folks calling it a cut-rate/derivative spin/lift of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. I really enjoyed Social Creature, but had no point of Ripley reference since I’ve never read said classic. But then fate intervened. Well, not [More]
If It’s Cold, It’s Sold: Prà Morandina Valpolicella
As a retail wine guy, one of the mantras of the business (and grocery in general) is “Stack it high and watch it fly.” For any beverage (beer/wine/cider/soda/water) the other old saw is “If it’s cold, it’s sold.” You don’t see red wine a lot, if ever, in the cooler, though. That’s changing, as more [More]
This Wine is Indestructible
Sometimes you defeat a wine, sometimes a wine defeats you. This was my experience with a recent sample bottle of Cantele Amativo. I tried my darndest to tame it, but had to give in and be humbled in/by its presence. This is an Italian wine from the Salento region. Located within Puglia, the heel of [More]
Beautiful Label, Beautiful Wine (Again) from Donnafugata
I love love love wine labels. Mostly because I had to sell/see so many bottles with crap ones. There is a winery in Sicily that always impresses me with what’s inside and outside the bottle. The Donnafugata Floramundi carries on that tradition. Perhaps you may remember Donnafugata from such bottles with great labels as Anthìlia, a [More]
