In between bites of grilled chicken pita BLT at Four Dogs Tavern a few weeks ago, I looked up across the table at fellow PA wine educator Bob Trimble. Chew, chew, chew. Swallow. Lift of the glass, sip, gulp. Smile. “The thing about this wine,” I said, “is that it probably tasted yummy when it…
Category: elegant wines
Churchill’s Vintage Port Recent (And Not So Recent) Releases
“You can beat the sh*t out of something, and all you get is powdered sh*t!” – Johnny Graham As part of some prep work for recently-published Playboy Port Primer (For Your Holiday Port-ing Pleasure), in November I was a guest of importer Frederick Wildman for a lunch/tasting and dinner/tasting with Johnny Graham, the force behind…
Sex? Or Death? Oh, And Rare Monbazillac (Chateau Bonnet Recent Releases)
In high school, I had a math teacher who used to tease us when we were timid in class about providing an answer that should have been obvious. He would hold out his lanky arms in the fashion of scales, feigning the weighing of agonizing choices, while muttering, “Sex? Or… death? Sex… or death? I…
Winemaking, Sashimi Style (Melville Estate Recent Releases)
“We don’t make wine. We grow wine. We’re more like ‘sashimi style’ winemaking.” On a cool morning that will later turn into a blustering day in the midst of a small August heat wave, Chad Melville seemed to be feeding me what ought to be a standard marketing line about winemaking. The kind that end…