An Introduction

I wanted to make my experience in wine retail available to anyone with internet connectivity, not just to people in the smallish college town where I live. I have found that most of my wine customers love to try new things, but they don’t have the time to sort through the tremendously complicated pile of information about the wines of the world, particularly the wines of Europe. The complexity of information can be daunting.

I hope this blog will be a useful guide for people in such a situation. I will review wines, and write about specific issues relevant to wine consumers: wine and food pairings, profiles of estates, and information regarding lesser-known regions producing really interesting wine worthy of your attention. If I review specific wines, I will only include positive reviews, as those are the only helpful kind. The specific wines I refer to may not be available where you live, but if you show my list to your trusted local wine merchant, chances are that he or she will have other good recommendations for you. Above all, I want to help you to find interesting new wines based on styles of wine that you already like, as well as helping you to learn to pair wine with food.

I regard wine essentially as an integral part of a meal rather than as a pre-dinner “cocktail” to be consumed without food. Many of the wines I review were created to be served with a meal and require food in order to taste “complete”.

I’ll state my biases right up front so you know what to expect (and whether or not you want to take my advice). I love old-world wines, particularly classic examples from pretty much every major (and minor) French appellation, as well as many Italian, German and Spanish wines. The best of these wines speak of their region they came from and are food-friendly, distinguished and memorable. And often affordable! Most of the wines I review will be in the under-$20 range, many around $12-$15 per bottle.

Finally, I dislike most new-world wine. I just do. Too much alcohol, too much oak, too much residual sugar, and no sense at all of where the wine came from. A laboratory experiment instead of an evocative expression of place. Very difficult to pair with food because of all that alcohol and oak. And the genuinely impressive ones are very, very expensive. And plenty of other people already rave about these wines, so I don’t feel too bad about excluding them.

Having gotten that off my chest, on to the wines!