When I visited the cork forests in the Alentejo about 10 years ago, it was October. We drove a few hours East from Lisbon, and I was amazed at how beautiful the landscape was, with the rolling hills of grass, vineyards of grapes, olive orchards, lavender growing everywhere, the beautiful oak trees, animals running around, flocks of birds in the trees. I was also surprised to see the bark taken off some of trees and not others, and I was shocked by how red and raw the trees looked! I was relieved to learn that the trees are just fine – that it is like removing the wool from sheep, the cork grows back!Continue reading →
Three Crémant d’Alsace Paired with Crab Crêpes and strawberry salad
Crémant and Crêpes? Oui! Three Crémant d’Alsace Paired with Crab Crêpes and Crêpes Suzette for a summery feast? Oui, oui, oui! Unfamiliar with Crémant? It’s simply sparkling wine made in France from other regions than Champagne Continue reading →
Last week, we looked at wines in the can for picnics. Now we have another alternative to heavy, breakable bottles for wine: bag in the box, a topic we have not explored for quite awhile! With their portability, not only are wines in a box great for gatherings and outdoor occasions, they are much more sustainable: they stay tasty and fresh for weeks. AND they are much better for the planet. How could this be true? Wine in a bag in a box does not allow the wine to go “bad”– and wine in a bag does not weigh as much as glass making it less taxing on the earth in terms of shipping. Root: 1’s GEA is sustainable in other ways too: it’s Chile’s first certified sustainable winery. We recently sampled Root: 1’s GEA, taking it on a camping trip to the east side of the Sierra near Yosemite National Park (pictured).
Stop giving Grandma White Zin!For this summery Wine Pairing Weekend event, we’re talking about canned wine paired with picnics. There’s a lot of canned wines out there these days, and they are super convenient as well as ecological. Cans are much lighter than bottles and aluminum recycles very easily back into a container for more wine! While we have a few samples of canned wines around, we decided to go a slightly different route, and focus on Decoy’s Seltzer as well as a bottle of their Decoy Merlot.Continue reading →
Whether you call it rosé in France, Portugal, or English-speaking countries, or rosado in Spanish, or rosato in Italian, with Rosé Day on the horizon the second Saturday of June, plus summer gatherings and other warm weather events, now’s the time to showcase rosé, a pink wine made from red grapes with little or no skin contact following pressing.
So to celebrate, how about three sparkling rosé wines from Italy that are unusual– and at three price points from affordable to special occasion? Continue reading →
In mid-September 2022, after building art at Burning Man and working harvest in California, I’m off to Italy! I’ll have about a week to help with harvest there in Tuscany or Lombardy or maybe both, then a week of conferences including the Slow Food Conference being held Th. Sept. 22 to Mon. Sept. 26, 2022 in Turin followed by the Wine Media Conference Weds. Sept 27 to Monday Oct. 3 where I’ll be leading a panel Continue reading →
Ready to expand your indigenous Italian white wine horizons beyond Moscato (sweet and/or sparkling), Prosecco (made from the Glera grape), Soave’s Garganega, or Pinot Grigio? Maybe you’re already familiar with grapes like these as well as Trebbiano, which is grown in at least 80 Italian DOCs, making it the most widely grown white grape in all of Italy. Well we have some grapes for you to discover! Ever heard of these rare white grapes?
Albana
Boschera
Erbaluce
Incrocio Bruni
Maceratino
Just how rare are these grapes? In Italian Grapes Unplugged: Grape by Grape, these grapes are listed as “rare” and some are being recovered after almost going extinct. This is the first time we’ve tasted three of these grapes, and
this is the first time Boschera has ever been tasted in the US! How special and rare is that?
You’d think you’d have to go to Italy to find wines as rare as these. But in the US, we are fortunate that Continue reading →
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 