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13 Apr 2016

Natural wine: WTF is it, and why do I care?

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So here’s the thing. I love wine, and it makes me happy opening up people’s eyes to great bottles, something I’ve been doing professionally for the past 10 years. But something changed for me in the last few years: I learned about natural wine, essentially just fermented grape juice, and was shocked that all wine wasn’t made that way. So I started researching, learning how different producers were working, and discovering a whole range of delicious natural wines that I wanted to drink.

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26 Oct 2015

Querceto di Castellina Chianti Classico L’aura

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This is classic, clean Chianti from a small family producer near Panzano in Chianti. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know the proprietor, Jacopo di Battista, over the past two years, and stay with them for a few days last summer. His family has farmed the small hilltop estate organically since inception in 1998, and has been certified since 2012. They’re equally low-intervention in the cellar…

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05 Oct 2015

Pierre Morey Bourgogne Aligote

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I love the way natural wine critic Alice Feiring describes Aligoté: “the much maligned other white grape of Burgundy, which a few brave and romantic vignerons slave to elevate to greatness.” One of those is Pierre Morey, the former winemaker at Domaine Leflaive (very famous Burgundy producer), who maximizes the grape’s capacity for complexity and terroir transparency with this biodynamic Aligoté bottling from his family’s vineyards in Meursault.

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23 Jul 2015

Succés Vinícola Experiència Parellada

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One of my favorite styles of wine is the light, zesty, low-alcohol white, commonly hailing from coastal Portugal, Italy or Spain.  I’ve taken to calling this delightful category “Delicious Water”.  Clocking in at less than 12% alcohol, DW wines are super food-friendly but are also amazing without food.  In the park. On a sunny day.  So refreshing.  Yum… This old-vine […]

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25 Jun 2015

Biondi Etna Bianco ‘Outis’

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The popularity of wines from Mount Etna, the very active volcano in Sicily’s north-eastern corner, has exploded in the last few years. It is now one of the Italy’s hottest wine regions, and the darling of sommeliers around the world, for good reason.  The volcanic soils, high altitudes and pre-phylloxera vineyards create wines of intense minerality, pure, bright fruit, and lightness of […]

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14 Apr 2015

Marenco ‘Pineto’ Brachetto d’Acqui

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To help draw out the juice of the strawberries in my Strawberry-Amaretti Crumble, I macerate them in Brachetto d’Acqui, a lightly sweet, low alcohol wine from Piemonte. Even if you generally don’t like wine on the sweeter side, there’s a good chance you’ll dig Brachetto. It’s the gateway dessert wine. It starts with a gorgeous nose of […]

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09 Apr 2015

Kiralyudvar Furmint Sec

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The Kiralyudvar Furmint Sec, an amazing dry white from an historic estate in Hungary (Királyudvar literally means The Kings Court), was perfect with the the bright flavors and creamy texture of the Farro Risotto with Arugula.  Furmint, the grape, is a traditional Hungarian variety that is typically made into the famous sweet Tokaji wines. Dry, I think […]

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