It’s one of the strangest appellations in all of Europe, a sort of French “Brigadoon” located on a misty ridge covered in razor-sharp, blue-grey rock… where flash floods wash away the roads nearly every year and the closest supermarket is…
Last week, we told you about how the vignerons of France toil at the intersection of three gigantic climatic forces: the Atlantic Ocean, the African continent, and Eurasia. The upside is an almost unmatched diversity of terroirs… if these forces…
This week, we hear from the front lines of the French vendange, the grape harvest that runs from August to October, culminating in the Fête des Vendanges de Montmartre, a four-day bacchanalia that takes over the old “Belle Epoque” streets…
First of all: Congratulations to all of you who were able to purchase Italian cases! We sold out much faster than we expected. Demand was so high, in fact, that we’re already trying to secure a few extra cases of…
Baltimore, MD If you looked closely at the notes we included with your first shipment of small-batch, Argentine wines, then you know that aging your Tacana and Puramun malbecs for another decade could yield remarkable results. High-altitude malbecs, in general,…
Annapolis, MD “Hopefully she hasn’t read what we’ve written about that buttery Chardonnay,” we thought. We were talking to Maggie Kruse, new head winemaker for Jordan Winery in California. Don’t worry, we’re not about to sell you a $90 California…
Annapolis, MD Out in the Atlantic, under a boiling, cloudless oven of a sky, green vines grow on the steep, pitch-black slopes of a sleeping volcano over 12,000 feet high. The vines, some 300 years old, have woven into dense…
Sperryville, Virginia The air hangs heavy on the front porch of this old Colonial house. White paint flakes off the column to our left. In front of us, off in the distance, the crests and troughs of the Blue Ridge…
“Anyone can produce a great wine… But it takes a genius to sell one,” our neighbor, the wine magnate Donald Hess, told us once. Sometimes the geniuses try a little too hard, as we discovered in Colorado recently. America is…
Annapolis, MD So, we’ve received queries from a few members to the effect of: “It’s the dead of summer… and I live in Texas… I’m afraid that my Italian wines are going to get cooked before they reach me.” That’s…
