Lirac has a bit of a troubled middle child syndrome on its hands. Being a middle child myself, I can relate. Look at it this way: if I asked you to tell me about some killer Southern Rhône reds (which is 85% of Lirac’s output), you’re probably going to start waxing poetic about Châteauneuf-du-Pape. You…
Category: overachiever wines
“Sweet Lincoln’s Mullet!” (2019 San Diego International Wine & Spirits Challenge Highlights)
I recently had the honor of judging at the 2019 San Diego International Wine & Spirits Challenge (now in its 37th year!), the results of which have been published, allowing me to share some of my thoughts on a few surprises that my panel had the good fortune of tasting during the competition. When I…
Puzzle Master (Fattoria Zerbina Recent Releases)
“The soil is like a puzzle.” When Fattoria Zerbina matriarch Cristina Geminiani talks about her Faenza area vineyards in Italy’s Romagna, she gives the distinct impressions that a) she knows what she is doing, and, b) isn’t prepared to take any sh*t about it. At least, that’s the sense that I got when I got…
Out Of Time In Piedmont (Scarpa Recent Releases)
Despite the fact that I have content to write up that spans more than a year of travel (including my takes on the wine scene in Israel, the southern Rhone, and Romagna), the thing that’s been rattling around in my brain and not letting the hell go stems from a much more recent excursion, when…
