Yes, it’s tragically cliched to offer Riesling and/or magnums for the Thanksgiving table, the narrative at this point being so tired it’s less like kicking a dead horse, and more like kicking at the spot where the horse died a decade earlier. Still,... View Post
13 Sep The German wine auctions, held once a year at the end of September (this year, Friday and Sunday, September 20 and 22), are little understood in the U.S. While the easy selling line is something like, “this is your chance... View Post
08 Aug David Byrne has described his 1984 tune Naive Melody as a love song full of non sequiturs. I’ve been thinking about writing something a bit more meaningful about Stein a long time, and listening to the Talking Heads last night, hearing this song,... View Post
24 Jun 2018 Lauer: the expanded collection! 2018 is the first vintage in a long, long, long time, where winemakers had basically the perfect fall. They could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Which means, the vintage is going to offer... View Post
08 May sea-spray pet-nat, “wild things,” cider and crazy-priced BIG BOTTLES new releases from the brothers Brand The brothers Brand have finished their whirlwind tour through Chicago and New York (the photo above, from LA, was a few years ago). Now it’s time to... View Post
04 Apr “Scents of kelp, sea breeze and oyster shell hold your attention.” Thus begins the genius-scholar David Schildknecht’s review of Becker’s 2014 old-vine Kabinett Trocken, a profound porcelain sculpture of a dry Riesling and one of the most ruthlessly mineral and oceanic... View Post
26 Mar Today we honor a bad-ass winemaker, doing all the right things (organic and bioD viticulture, hand-harvesting, natural ferments) in virtual obscurity: Camille Migot. We also honor two of the raciest Gamays we’ve ever tasted: a sparkling Gamay rosé that speaks of its... View Post
07 Mar Wine culture tends not to be uniform, homogenous, or propelled by easy logic, despite the messaging we are fed by all those interested in making things easy and, most importantly, easy to sell.* Thus we have the fact that while Germany... View Post