Posted in food, i *heart*, restaurants, travel, wine, tagged catifish sandwich, Cristal, Hot Picks, Luneau-Papin, Matt's In The Market, Peter Liem, Seattle on July 1, 2008 | 3 Comments »
(Above: Champagne grapes are indeed very cute)
I was in Seattle last week for the Wine & Spirits Hot Picks tasting event, which was held at the historic Paramount Theatre in downtown. Like I did for a similar W&S event held in LA, I participated in a radio show in the days before the tasting (although [...]
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(Above: an Italian poster for Elio Petri’s 1965 film, “La Decima Vittima”, or “The 10th Victim” 
I love Saturdays. Even in the middle of a crazy busy deadline period (and a trip to Seattle early this week for the second installment of Wine & Spirits’ Hot Picks event), there’s just something magical about Saturday. It helped, [...]
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(Above: A botte grande at the cellar of a Barolo producer I visited in Serralunga this past Spring)
So I had an interesting conversation with a winemaker acquaintance today. He’s recently started to use a few large oak casks (foudre in French, botti grande in Italian; what Barolo is traditionally aged in, for instance) at his [...]
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Posted in friday linkfest, wine, tagged Add new tag, biodynamics, Classic Japanese Cars, Datsun, Fermentation, Josh Greene, Peter Liem, Wine & Spirits on May 12, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I couldn’t resist that title, sorry.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in the southern Californian auto business, but I’ve always had a place in my heart for classic Japanese cars. I even drive one, the 1976 Datsun 280 ZX seen below pulled off to side of highway 128 in Anderson Valley.
Anyway, the New York Times [...]
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Besides this picture, which I thought captured a certain attitude towards the well-reported Montalcino scandal at this year’s VinItaly, one of the things I came away with from the event was the excitement many growers and winemakers feel towards their 2007 wines. You can read a brief report I wrote about tasting wines from [...]
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…Etc.
Maybe it’s because I had an excellent yoga class earlier tonight, but I’m suddenly in a mood to recalibrate a few things in my life. Starting with my palate. Although that’s more of a work excuse than anything else. After a long break from tasting wine at Wine & Spirits, I’m about to start regular [...]
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There’s been plenty of chatter over the recent ’scandal’ in Montalcino, and you’ll find ongoing coverage of saga at VinoWire as well as a tidy write up by Eric Asimov at the Pour.
For a thorough look at today’s Brunello, and possibly a backgrounder to recent concerns, check out this excerpt from an article by David [...]
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I’m busy working on an article for the San Francisco Chronicle and therefore can’t think of anything original to say today. However some friends of mine certainly have done so, and I’m happy to spread the love. Here’s what they’ve got to say:
Peter Liem, my friend and colleague from Wine & Spirits who’s currently living [...]
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Posted in food, italy, wine, tagged bollito, Florence, Giuseppe Mengoni, lampredotto, Mercato Centrale, Nerbone, primitivo on February 26, 2008 | 3 Comments »
One of the nice things about the rather “loose” schedule at the Chianti Classico anteprima event in Florence last week is that it was a cinch to throw down pencil and tasting book and leave.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Mercato Centrale (or Central Market, a rather obvious translation) in Florence’s borgo San [...]
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Posted in i *heart*, travel, wine, tagged Anderson Valley, gewurztraminer, Handley, International Alsace Varieties Festival, Navarro, pinot gris, pinot noir, Proust, wine on February 16, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Anderson Valley–a long, wide valley that runs in a northwesterly direction towards the Pacific Ocean in Mendocino County–is possibly my favorite wine region in California. The redwood-lined ridges and gently undulating hills along the valley floor (if you can call it that) are among the reasons I love this place; the creeping, cold ocean mists [...]
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