If you’re in the bubbly business in the Aube (the southern region in France’s Champagne-Ardenne), then you have to make peace with the fact that, compared with the popular Épernay and Ay to the north, you’re basically the red-headed stepchild of Champagne. Unless you’re Emmanuel Lassaigne, who crafts the bubbly at Champagne Jacques Lassaigne. In…
Category: on the road
On The Fine Art Of Not Giving A Sh*t (Wiegner Etna Recent Releases)
Viewing the volcanic rock strewn about the foothills of the still-active Mt. Etna volcano, one would be forgiven for imagining that it must take a crazy person to want to farm anything there. After meeting the wily and eccentric Peter Wiegner, the paterfamilias of Etna’s Wiegner Winery, and his huge Tibetan Mastiff patrolling the grounds…
They Can Be Heroes (Ben Rye Retrospective At Palate Press)
Continuing the coverage from my Sicily jaunt earlier this year, if you head on over to Palate Press you can now view my take on a bit of a vinous historic first (“Heroic Viticulture on the island of Pantelleria”). While in Sicily, I was lucky enough to have a chance to visit both the wind-swept…
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Carricante (Highlights From Sicilia En Primeur 2015)
It’s somewhat ironic, as I kick off a series of posts about my press jaunt to Sicily earlier this year, that the wine region I often cite as a source of reasonably-priced wines made from international varieties will now be compressed into a highlight reel focusing primarily on one indigenous variety. But hey, we gotta…