Aged, Affordable Wines to Drink Now

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I love older wines, those savory notes of earth, stewed fruits, honey, spice. But space is limited in my home, and I’ve yet to get into the good collector’s habit of buying wines by the case and slowly working my way through the bottles as they evolve. Instead, I hold on for dear life to the one or two bottles I have of a wine in a vintage, never quite sure of what occasion deserves them, and I count my lucky stars when I have the opportunity to taste wines others graciously open for me, as the experience is always memorable, however large or small the occasion: a 1934 Simi Cabernet to celebrate 150 years of uninterrupted production, a 40-year-old Kopke white port alongside the Douro on a trip to Portugal, a 1986 Latour popped the first time I tasted grass-fed beef from my aunt’s farm. Continue reading

Plum, Vanilla, & Honey: Grapes Ripening at Tenuta di Trinoro

Trinoro VinesArriving at Trinoro was like driving across a moonscape, with the rich, clay-filled earth cracked and churned from the recent wheat harvest. Only after cresting the hill from Sarteano into the Val d’Orcia and winding our way down the gravel road did we begin to pass by plots of land filled with vines. Andrea Franchetti, owner of Tenuta di Trinoro, explained to me that, of his 200 hectares, only a small portion is under vine – he’d planted what land he could to which the grapes would take, the rest dominated by the thick clay or hidden under the growth of the thick forests that surround the property.

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SIMI: A Long History of American Winemaking

135 years is a long time, especially in US wine history, but that’s how long Simi winery in Sonoma, CA has been producing wine. In fact, Simi was making wine even through the years of Prohibition as an authorized producer of sacramental wine.

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