Argentina

Argentines have often been described as Italians who speak Spanish, dress like the English and live like Parisians. It is apt and is as good a description of Argentine wine as it is for the people of this spectacular nation. For Argentine wine today is abundant like Italian wine, open to new world technique as wines are in Spain, dressed (labeled) like a Savile Row gentleman and in many cases as elegant and distinguished in style as a cultivated Parisian. The industry in Argentina is vast and long standing. It is the fifth largest wine producing country in the world and more than one million square miles of land are under vine. Obviously, there is a wide variety of type and style. In the 19th century when much of today’s Argentine wine industry was founded, wines were grown for the local population and for everyday consumption.

In the late part of the twentieth century, the Argentine wine industry began to evolve along with its rivals in the rest of the new world. Young entrepreneurs joined families long in the wine business to explore quality regions at higher altitudes, new techniques from California and France and new methods of controlling yields. The result has been a quality explosion which has propelled the growth of Argentine wines. Today, Argentine wine is the fastest growing “category” among all fine wines from all wine growing countries. This is remarkable and would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. It says more than anything how good Argentine wines are now. Read More »

This varietal, originally from Bordeaux, is well adapted to Argentina’s high Andean vineyards where temperatures can fluctuate from very hot to very cold. Malbec is a late ripening varietal with thick skins. When ripe (which happens rarely in Bordeaux) it yields dense, rich, powerful wines with great flavor. It has enormous appeal especially to new wine consumers. The Argentine vineyards are no one-trick pony however. Bonarda, another special grape variety, is now coming to be known and Torrontes, a white varietal, is gaining popularity. Read Less »

France

France dominates our understanding of wine, our language about wine and our reference points. It is our center of gravity. To understand wine is to understand French wine (that is not the same as understanding France or the French, two related but different subjects all together). French wine can be understood simply by drawing a line from north to south and then another from east to west around the middle of the country. The northeast is the home of the Loire valley and the light, elegant wines made from Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc such as Sancerre, Pouilly Fume and Chinon. The northwest, more continental in climate, finds viticulture dominated by Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Champagne all the way south through the magnificent vineyards of Chablis and Burgundy to the gentle hills of Beaujolais where Pinot Noir gives way to Gamay. Farther east begin the great vineyards of Alsace home to France’s most aromatic wines, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Blanc.

In Bordeaux, noble wines are made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc. Surrounding Bordeaux the vineyards of Cahors are home to Malbec which needs the extra warmth to yield its considerable charm. And, finally, in the Southeast, where the Rhone river runs north to south like a majestic highway, the vineyards overlooking the river produce the world’s greatest expressions of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre in red wine and Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne in white. These same varietals also inform the vast and developing vineyard of the Languedoc just south of the Rhone delta toward Spain. In each of these areas, native grape varieties find original and authentic expressions. To understand Sauvignon Blanc, one must understand Sancerre. Read More »

To appreciate Syrah, one must understand the wines of the Northern Rhone, such as Hermitage and to understand Riesling, one must understand Alsace Riesling. France then is THE point of reference and the beginning of our understanding of fine wine. And, in the heady pleasures and unmatchable quality many of its wines offer, France is, very often, the ultimate point of that understanding too. France also is home to the production of spectacular spirits, aperitifs, elixirs and liqueurs. From Cognac to Calvados, French spirits are among the best in the world. This is true too for the great French Liqueurs, many of them still made to original (and secret) formulas and recipes and many still owned by the churches and monasteries in which they were born. Read Less »

Italy

Italy is not a country to understand; it is a country to love. And to love Italy is ultimately to understand it; so too Italian wine. Complicated to the extreme and yet utterly simple, Italian wine confounds and pleases at the same time. There is scarcely a square meter of land in Italy that is not planted to vineyards of some kind. And this speaks to the long domestication of the vine itself in Italy. It also speaks to the civilizing influence of wine and wine growing. For without the vine, man would not have been able to cultivate many parts of the arid Peninsula we know as Italy today.

This is the origin of quality and individuality. And these, finally, are the great gifts Italian wine has given to the world of wine (and to humanity): civilization and regional identity. Divided into twenty wine growing regions, with now 36 (and growing) D. O. C. G. Read More »

O. C. and 118 IGT appellations, Italian wine is decidedly and infinitely diverse. In the north, rich, tannic reds produced from Nebbiolo in Piedmont, bracing whites from Gave near the Italian Riviera, luscious dry Pinot Grigio from the Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige and Collio, powerful and jammy Amarone from Veneto’s Valpolicella and elegant Sangiovese in Tuscany are neighbors, yet each is unique. In the South and on the Islands, briny, dry Vermentino and rustic, delicious Cannonau (Grenache) from Sardinia, warm, deeply-flavored Nero d’Avola from Sicily, rich, bittersweet Primitivo and Negroamaro from Puglia and noble, age-worthy Aglianico from Basilicata share only their embrace of the sun; each, again, an individual and special experience. Read Less »

Portugal

Portugal Like all of Latin Europe, Portugal owes its history of winegrowing to the Romans. Known as Lusitania, Portugal was an important source of table wine for the empire and wine has been in dissociable with Portuguese culture ever since. Grapes grow in Portugal from north to south in a variety of delimitated zones. Unique among countries in southern Europe, Portugal is both Mediterranean in climate (for the most part) and yet totally Atlantic in maritime influence. Portugal, in fact, has no access at all to the Mediterranean sea! Like Spain, Portugal is an old world country, especially in its wine industry, buffeted today by international trends and change. And so, new styles of wines and winemaking adapted from the new world have found a home in Portugal.

These indigenous varieties make the tasting and discovery of Portuguese wines a great pleasure. There are four basic types of Portuguese wines: red table wines, grown principally in the south and central parts of the country; the fortified wines, Madeira and Port; and very dry whites, grown in the far north. Port is, without doubt, Portugal’s great contribution to wine culture in the world. Fortified from a variety of grape varieties grown on the steep terraces of the Douro river, Port seemingly can age forever and gains complexity as it does. Younger Port wines, Port wines aged in wood, and white Ports are delicious as aperitifs or after dinner drinks. Today, the same vineyards that provide grapes for Port are being marshaled for the production of intense, noble dry wines, Douro reds. Read Less »

Specialty Spirits

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