Originally posted on Departures.com
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we’ve been turning our efforts to finding the perfect wines to drink with this year’s feast, and the verdict is in: Austrian riesling. Specifically, the 2003 Heiligenstein from Weingut Hirsch, which is currently drinking beautifully paired alongside the flavors of fall. Continue reading
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As the days become shorter and we begin edging towards the marathon dinner party and feasting season that is November and December, my mind turns to after-dinner wines—bottles that are both excellent complements to the season’s many desserts and special enough to give as gifts. A personal favorite is tawny port. I love the intensity of flavors that develop after long aging in barrel and its soft, silky character resulting from exposure to oxygen over time. This style is traditionally made from red grapes, since firm tannins are necessary for the long aging process. Yet Kopke, the oldest port house in Vila Nova da Gaia, produces wines that drink like tawnies using only the traditional white grapes of the region in 10–40 year old blends. (Some of those wines are even older since these are blends of different colheitas, or years.) The wines have a profound depth and range of flavors that are perfect for fall, from nuts and spices to dark chocolate and orange rind.
One year ago today, I got on a plane to Italy without a job and no clue what the future had in store. My life since that moment has changed in a hundred ways, both large and small. The past year has been exhilarating, challenging, painful, rewarding, immensely draining, utterly uplifting. In short, it’s been the best year of my life. I am ever grateful for the support of my wonderful friends and family for encouraging me to take a leap of faith, for putting up with me (and for putting me up), for being my anchors when I felt adrift, and for helping me along the journey to realize a dream.
A few years ago, I visited the Vinho Verde region in Portugal and found myself completely taken by the landscape and its wines. With a return trip to Portugal planned for this summer, I revisited some of my favorites in my most recent article for Departures.
Vines outside of the home of Dom Diogo in the Basto region
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In my most recent piece for The SOMM Journal, I explore the variety of Provence’s favorite drink with Château Minuty’s owner and winemaker François Matton at Le Cirque. Keep reading for the full story, and tasting notes excerpted below.
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
Last May, my mother, brother, and I hit the road in Sicily to explore the island’s treasure, gastronomic, historic, and otherwise. I spent a good six months planning the trip and have since been asked for my itinerary on several occasions, so I thought I’d share it here.
First stop, Agrigento. Continue reading
Terroir—the notion that the place in which grapes are grown gives them a unique flavor—is an overwrought wine term, or so I’d thought until I tasted two single vineyard Chardonnays by Argentina’s Bodega Catena Zapata.
Cinghiale. Wild boars. Tuscany is known for them, and in the fall, it’s impossible not to see wild boar ragu across restaurant menus throughout the region. It’s a dish I love, rich with the earthy, gamey meat of the fresh pig.
What I do not love is seeing the cinghiale in the flesh. Up close. Particularly in the middle of hunting season. Continue reading
Arriving 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.