Biodynamic wine. What is it and what is the inconvenience to which I refer?
“Founded by Rudolph Steiner in 1924, biodynamic farming is the oldest 'green' farming movement, and a forerunner of organics…
Antinori. A noble Tuscan family and a producer of wine for twenty-six generations. I can count on my fingers the number of other families or estates whose winemaking history dates back to 1180, but longevity is far from the only reason that Marchesi Antinori is worthy of note.
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Further to my posts "An Indescribable Folly", "It Was Worth A Shot", and "The Mosel Shortcut", I was deeply saddened recently to read a progress report about the Upper Mosel Crossing on Jancis Robinson's website.
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I was fortunate enough to dine at Brawn recently and I enjoyed some of the best food that I have eaten in quite some time. An exceptional dish of grilled duck hearts on fresh broad bean purée was followed by an equally delicious confit rabbit leg served with wet polenta and a delicate gremolata.
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I know that language can evolve through common usage and I’m prepared to bite my lip in most instances, but some things are simply wrong and cannot be overlooked. What does this have to do with a wine blog? Well, the grammatical faux pas in question relates to the word “variety”.
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To bastardise the words of Aeschylus, Hiram Johnson or Oliver Stone, the first casualty of wine is integrity. An almost inevitable result of the spate of mergers and acquisitions that seemed to characterise and redefine the Australian wine industry around the turn of the century was the loss of many of the things that had led to the companies involved being worth so much money.
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It's not often that a cookbook impresses me so much that I want to write about it. Le Livre Blanc, by Anne-Sophie Pic, is just such a rarity: a jewel when viewed from every facet. From the stark modernity of the laser-cut, purposely-undersized slipcase and the pages' silver edging to the arresting beauty of the food within, this book encapsulates everything that haute cuisine aspires to be.
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Those of you who kindly read my blog on a regular basis will be aware of the ecological, environmental and cultural barbarism currently being perpetrated in the heart of Germany's Mosel Valley. If you would like to refresh your memory, do please read "An Indescribable Folly" and "It Was Worth A Shot".
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Run by the Boscaini family - for the last fifty or so years headed by Sandro Boscaini, a.k.a. “Mister Amarone” – Masi’s list of achievements rightly sets it apart as one of the most successful and important winemaking dynasties in the Veneto.
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The annual carnival of mercenary hype is upon us once again and, as usual, my heart is filled with lament at the prospect of ever greater numbers of lovely wines rendered unaffordable by joyless speculation and hoarding. As good a time as any, then, to open a bottle of Bordeaux bought in slightly less cynical times when a reasonable amount of wine was still bought to drink rather than to resell.
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One of the funny things about the creative process, at least as far as we left-brainers are concerned, is that what you end up with can often bear little resemblance to that which you set out to create. The travelling is more important than the arriving; the artistic endeavour more significant than the resulting artwork. Even more bafflingly, this is perfectly acceptable. Try to run a business that way and see what happens.
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You may have noticed from my last post (An Indescribable Folly) that I was really rather incensed to learn of the recommencement of building work for the B50 Neu road which will cut a swathe through a large tract of the world’s finest Riesling terroir.
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This may not be the finest piece of writing on my blog, indeed I haven't actually written most of it, but even voices as eloquent as those of Jancis Robinson MW and Hugh Johnson OBE barely begin to convey the concentration of narrow minded, short sighted and thoughtless decision making involved in the €270 million folly that is the Hochmoselübergang (Upper Mosel Crossing).
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The importance of Marchesi Piero Antinori’s contribution to Tuscan wine specifically, to Italian wine generally and to the standing of both in the wider world of wine cannot easily be overstated. The figures make impressive enough reading on their own: Piero is the 26th generation of a family whose unbroken winemaking provenance dates back to 1385…
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This evening I opened a bottle of Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese 2009 (7.5% ABV) recently purchased from Howard Ripley, a specialist importer of truly great wines from the homes of some of my favourite wines: Germany and Burgundy. As you’d expect from one of the world’s greatest Riesling producers, this was a hugely enjoyable and particularly well-crafted bottle of wine.
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Giuseppe Quintarelli, the incomparably gifted and inspirational maestro of the Valpolicella region, has passed away aged eighty-four after suffering from Parkinson's disease for some years. Each of his wines, from his Valpolicella to his Amarone Riserva, has such effortlessly beautiful poise, concentration and sense of place that it is easy to overlook the dedication, the skill and the love that the quietly unassuming "Bepi" lavished upon them.
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I know it’s hard to believe, but this job isn’t always as glamorous as my writings would have you think. It’s not all plain sailing, you know. Only my dedication to the public service that is this blog enables me to cope with the good, the bad, and the ugly faces of the wine world with such impunity.
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Now that I’m all too close to being forty years old, I think I’ve reached the right point in my life to start smoking. To hell with the consequences.
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Common wisdom states that you should never return to a past love, and so it was with a degree of trepidation that I opened a bottle of wine which I had tasted (and loved) only once before, almost twelve years ago to the day.
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