Something To Drink
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This Week’s Wines September 12, 2006
Ruffino is a long-lived name in the Italian wine industry. Two cousins, Ilario and Leopoldo, began the business in 1877, working as negociants (buying wine from other producers and blending it for sale) and making some wine from their own grapes. Although the property and the business were bought by the Folinari family in 1913,
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This Week’s Wine, Sept. 5, 2006
Remember Gallo Hearty Burgundy, the jug wine that many of us sampled in our early days as wine drinkers? Well, it’s back, and while it’s been many years between tastes, it seems to be new and improved. The Hearty Burgundy is one of eight new wines – all scheduled to retail at between $5 and
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This Week’s Wine August 14
The Chardonel grape, a cross between the Chardonnay and the Seyval Blanc, makes some interesting, tasty wines. Like Vignoles, it can be vinified pretty much across the spectrum from dry to sweet. The wine has hints of both the familiar Chardonnay flavor and the crisper, more mineral aspect of the Seyval; it can be a
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This Week’s Wines, August 4
Many American wine-drinkers swear by Chardonnay. Many swear at it. But people buy it, a lot of it. A recent survey by Restaurant Wine Magazine showed, for 2005, of the top 60 wines sold in the restaurants surveyed, 21 were Chardonnays, and the wine also accounted for 34.4 percent of restaurant sales. White wines outsold
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This Week’s Wines, July 3, ’06
A week ago, we were talking about rose wines and drinking for summer. Let’s continue the discussion another week. More St. Louis restaurants and wine stores are adding roses – good roses – to their selections, and the reaction seems to be good. More people are trying the off-color wine, and they’re liking it, which
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This Week’s Wines
With summer now formally upon us, and picnics or outdoor meals a part of our everyday vocabulary, we often look for lighter wines, especially at lunch time. Even though our red-wine preference is for a glass with body and big flavor, we think differently about whites, and even more so when it comes to rose.
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This Week’s Wines
We taste a lot of wine at our house, or when we’re traveling. Expanded by-the-glass lists are a boon when we dine, and larger selections of half-bottles are a pleasure, too. They make it easier to sample a greater variety, and they save on both cash and calories. We like wine a lot, and we
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Stone Hill, Mount Pleasant and Chateau St. Michelle
Wine dinners can be extremely enjoyable, and they provide information and knowledge, as well as excellent meals. We attended three very different ones over the last couple of weeks, and the report, looking at the wines rather than the meals, goes like this, in reverse chronological order: STONE HILL WINERY, Hermann – Every spring for
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Clos Pegase: Wine and Art
To a high-wire walker in a circus, balance equals life. To a winemaker, or a wine drinker, balance is almost as important. It is a fine line that sets excellent wine apart from ordinary, and it is present in many areas when one thinks about the pleasure of wine. The balance between alcohol and acidity
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From the Pestalozzi Street Crowd
Anheuser-Busch seems determined to create any and all possible alcoholic beverages, and their operation sometimes boggles the mind of an ordinary drinker. I didn’t get involved with the efforts of A-B until I was a Mizzou freshman lo, those many years ago. I got to Columbia with a mass of World War II veterans, and