MANY YEARS AGO, when I first met the wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr., he told me something that I have never forgotten. "My wife, Pat, has a much better palate than I do," he said. (Was it really possible that the most influential wine ...
It has been 10 years since Jonathan Nossiter picked up a digital camcorder and critically captured the impact of globalization and its homogenizing effect on the wine industry. The result was more than 500 hours of footage, recorded in the ...
Chinese vineyards are slowly gaining the respect of the wine world. Long written off as plonk, wines from China garnered 19 medals at the latest Decanter World Wine Awards in London, up from just 11 last year. Chateau Reifeng-Auzias, located ...
AT THE END OF 2005, I packed my bags for a New Year's trip to Cape Town with one of my closest childhood friends. "You'll have bobotie," my mom said. I asked her what that was. "It's like the national dish of South Africa," she said. "It ...
Everything in New York is bigger and brighter than it is in the rest of the world—or at least it seems like that. New York presents large. This principle applies even to the city's wine lists. In fact, I'd venture to guess that these days ...
LENTILS, AMONG THE TINIEST of legumes, serve as the base of a big-flavored, aromatic soup that requires no broth, no shopping for rare ingredients and only a minimal amount of slicing and stirring.
THERE ARE PEOPLE for whom the wine cellar is every bit as important as the wine. The cellars of such people tend to be carpeted, mirrored and lit by chandeliers. They may also be accessorized with Old Master paintings, Roman statues and ...
Wine often reveals a cornucopia of flavors. Watching a connoisseur identify these may induce a few sniggers, but a fine wine can boast several competing aromas, all jostling for attention in the glass. These can range from fruit (apple, ...
"THE NEGOTIANTS USED to deduct 10 francs from the price of a barrel because the road was so steep," says Vincent Audras of Le Clos de Haute-Combe, a cheerful octogenarian, looking down the precipitous slope just in front of his stone ...
There isn't an exact science behind choosing wine at a restaurant but I'm guessing that when most of us step inside the dining room we select the dish we want to eat first and then a wine to accompany it. What happens when you reverse the ...
Everyday Drinking Vinhão Tinto Afros Vasco Croft, Vinho Verde, Portugal Vintage: 2010 Alcohol: 12.5% Price: Around £14 or €17 Northern Portugal can boast a long tradition of producing scintillating, bright, easy-to-drink white wines. The Afros ...
IF A BOTTLE OF wine can evoke an emotion (and I believe that it can), the feeling that I get when I look at a half-bottle is, frankly, sad. All I can think about is the half that's missing, and the fact that two people can have just about ...