Something To Drink
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This Week’s Wine September 4, 2007
Lucian Dressel made a major contribution to the Missouri wine industry in the last half of the Twentieth Century, and now he’s working in the same direction in Illinois. He’s the general manager and winemaker at little Mary Michelle Winery, in Carrollton, Ill., some 50 miles north of St. Louis on U.S. Highway 67, and
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This Week’s Wine August 22, 2007
Winning the Missouri lottery may involve beating very high odds, but winning a medal in the Missouri wine competition has sadly become not very much of a feat – the recent State Fair competition awarded medals to 76 percent of entries, or 197 medals out of 258 entries. That means the bar is very low,
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This Week’s Wine August 5, 2007
The creation of wine is a natural process that begins when fruit ferments. When apples fall off the tree in the backyard, and lie there for a while, there’s a change. When you pick one up and smell it, the aroma of alcohol is easy to spot. As the fruit ferments further, watch the rabbits
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This Week’s Wine July 28, 2007
In a summer when dry rose wines seem to be reaching their long-deserved place on American wine lists and in Americans’ glasses, we have a first-rate Missouri rose to discuss. Stone Hill, the Hermann-based winery that has been a Missouri leader for many years, has a new, very dry 2006 rose made from the St.
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This Week’s Wines July 2, 2007
Given recent developments, it almost looks as if the forces of ABC – Anything But Chardonnay – are winning a larger share of American drinkers in the battle for white wine supremacy. Spanish white wines from the Albarino grape are making a move into the market, and other white grapes – Pinot Gris (or Grigio,
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They Called That Wine WHAT?
One of the things that distinguishes liberals from conservatives, to my way of thinking, is that the former have well-advanced senses of humor and the latter do not. This gives an advantage to single-issue zealots who use a mantra and repeat it. But there seems to be a shift on the horizon, at least in
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Has Missouri’s Wine Crop Been Iced?
When Fran Landesman wrote her moody, pessimistic lyrics to Tommy Wolf’s haunting melody and the result was "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," she didn’t know how perceptive she was. The song later appeared in "The Nervous Set," and over the following half-century was recorded by such legendary singers as Cleo Laine, Shirley
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Valley of the Moon Cuvee de la Luna
Blind wine tastings can be a lot of fun, though if they are taken too seriously, they can be a very humbling experience. Mostly, they are fun and an opportunity to try to judge both familiar and unfamiliar wines. Oh, I know there are wine-tasters who can tell you what side of the hill was
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This Week’s Wine: April 25, 2007
The rise of proprietary wine labels, which sell the product without using the name of either the grape or the winery as the predominant feature, has brought some interesting use of words, phrases and designs to the wine industry. Talented marketers are everywhere these days, glutting the market in the same way as the heavy
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This Week’s Wine March 25, 2007
Good reporters are said to have a nose for news. Well, Peter Mondavi, Jr., has a name for wine. He’s part of a legendary Napa Valley wine family, grandson of Cesare and Rosa, who bought the Charles Krug winery in 1943. Their sons, Peter and Robert, operated the winery for 22 years before Robert left