Legendary Afternoon of Henri Jayer’s Richebourg
This comes to you from the archives of the lost year, 2004. About 75 other articles remain in the vaults from last year. I’ll have to save those for that elusive book deal. A recent cellar made me remember the event and pull it out of the safety deposit box to share.
The stars had [...]
Virtual is real
One part of the weekend was devoted to my computer. For two years, I let it get on with itself, downloading useless programs, hidden indexes. It was time to get real and the arrival of ‘Tiger’, was a good excuse to get on with this impossible exercise (yes, of course, I have a Macintosh, obviously [...]
Londoner
I feel like a Londoner, as a city man, and like my brothers of the tarmac, I will continue to come and go, without fear or dread, as this is the only dignified and modest homage to those who just lost their lives or who are forever after ravaged in their body and soul-
Jacques Berthomeau
source: [...]
Obviousness
A good wine is one which renders the drinker happy-
Dynamic dynamists…
Last week, a lightening passage through a tasting of bio-dynamicists, an «off» at Vinexpo.
Dark room, sunken, noisy, but very clean, total disorganisation, astonishing mix of hyper-professional tasters and Baba-types in sandals and ‘churidar kurtas’. This should have been «hyper-closed off » anyone can go in. The ambience reminds me of Saturday mornings in the 70s [...]
Un-Corking Wine: Technology To Save Spoiled Bottles
Even as I post this I’m shaking my head in disbelief. I haven’t heard as outrageous a claim for a wine gadget since the Clef du Vin was released last Christmas. But there’s someone in the UK who has apparently created a device that can eliminate the “corked” flavor from TCA spoiled wines and restore them to their former “un-corked” state. I know. It sounds preposterous. But many bets have been lost taking odds against modern chemistry, especially when it is reported by generally reputable news sources like the Telegraph in the U.K. Short story: After 20 years of messing…
My own dictionary of quotations
Curious to know more about T S Eliot following my posting the other day, I messed around on the internet and came across two quotations which suggested I might drop them into the world of wine. I decided on the spur of the moment to start a new section entitled « My own dictionary of [...]
“Vigneron’, intelligent 9 times… you will be (master Yoda)
Read in Le Figaro an interesting dossier on precocious children and their intelligence.
According to the article, Howard Gardner, professor of Science and Eduction at Harvard, listed 9 forms of intelligence: musical (Mozart); movement (the mime artist Marceau); logic-mathematics (Albert Einstein); linguistical (Thomas Stearns Eliot); spatial (Pablo Picasso); interpersonal (Gandhi), which enables one to understand [...]
The spy who loved wine
On this national holiday in the USA, I have set myself up as a wine spy for the CIA.
Everyone knows that during their spare hours, it orientates its spy satellites to track the great French vineyards . Have they already rummaged overhead at Vingrau? Hum, small chance. But, me, I’ve done it, thanks to [...]
Hanging with Tanzer and Meadows, and Some Observations from Dave on Part III of the 2001 Cali Cab Showdown I missed
1995 & 1996 White Burgundy Retrospective Hosted by Steve Tanzer
Steve and I always do a white wine tasting together in June, and this year we decided to take a peek at 1995 versus 1996 in White Burgundy, taking pairs of select, top producers and comparing them side by side. Steve decided to do the [...]
The first ‘Salon des Vins d’Auteurs’
Scarcely returned from Vinexpo and after two days of sorting out problems and doing paperwork, it’s time to repack the car, direction Gap, for the first Salons des Vins d’Auteurs, the latest idea of two of my oldest, very oldest friends, François Briclot (of le Rouge-Gorge, famous wine bar in Paris) and Dominique David our [...]
Extravaganza For The Senses: July 16th, Los Angeles
OK all you wine lovers in Los Angeles, listen up. July 16th marks the 8th annual Extravaganza For The Senses, which is basically LA’s version of some of the big wine and food events that take place every few months up here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Like some of those events, this one benefits an extremely good cause: the LA Free Clinic, which has been providing free medical care, counseling, and legal and social services to needy folks in LA since 1967. Held on the main lot of 20th Century Fox, this 3 to 4 hour evening extravaganza…
Oh, So THAT’s How You Make a Cult Cabernet
Thanks to an e-mail from Hector Hill, a regular Vinography reader, I caught a couple of articles yesterday in the Los Angeles Times about California Cult Cabernets. The Times tasting panel went through a dozen or so top Cabernets (minus Screaming Eagle and a couple of other big names) and then staff writer Corie Brown did a piece about how these winemakers go about making their wines. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the tasting notes, but Corie managed to uncover something so brilliant in his piece that I must reprint it here. Yes folks, it’s the L.A. Times 12 step…