Wine

Most wine columns resemble recipes from Larousse Gastronomique or Mastering the Art of French Cooking in this way: they have happy endings. This column, alas, proceeds with a melancholy burden. The world of wine, it pains me to report, is in the doldrums. Is it because of a new infestation of phylloxera, the blight that devastated French vineyards in the 19th century, or some other pest? Is it some novel tyranny of teetotalers, outlawing the production and consumption of wine? No. It is something closer to original sin or what Immanuel Kant on a dreary afternoon called “the crooked timber of humanity” out of which nothing straight can be fashioned.

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. Since I don’t have any childcare “learing centers” to offer my readers, I thought, the weather being frigid here in the northeast, I would reach out with the warmth of – no, not “collectivism,” to which I am allergic – but of some recent discoveries in the world of wine. Much cheaper, believe me, and much more palatable. It is only fairly recently that the Santa Cruz Mountains have come into their own as a California wine-producing region. I was deeply impressed by the 2021 Estate chardonnay from Rhys Vineyards. Sourced from three spots in the mountains, with elevations ranging

It’s a virtue-signal intended to make Canadians feel that Something is Being Done, however pointless

The winery’s most distinctive wines are blends of Portuguese grapes grown in the Paso Robles hills and the valleys beneath

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold (and red), / And many goodly bottles drunk

It is all very, very French but somehow also very, very New York

The establishment which hosted boasts a stupendous list

It is light, flowery, full of pleasing acidity and fruitiness, satisfying by itself and notably food friendly

It is said that Alsace is the sunniest spot in all of winemaking Europe

My glass of Pol Roger, expensive though it is now, will not be getting more expensive any time soon

Fortunately for us wine drinkers, the Benedictine monks who have been planting grapes on the slopes for centuries were not sissies

The feast was all about some of the finer things the French have to offer — wine, food and fashion

Probably the fanciest wine I had over the holiday season was a 2021 Échezeaux Grand Cru from Marchand-Tawse

The wine is eminently drinkable, by which I mean two people can get outside of a bottle before they can say ‘antipasto’

What if I told you that some of the most spectacular wines in Italy were made from the Cabernets (Sauvignon and Franc) and Merlot?