Backward and Forward: Tasting Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, 1974 to Now
Snapshots from four decades of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon teach us something about taste, and tasting.
Essays
Tarentaise: An Alpine Style Cheese That’s Uniquely Vermont
The Tarentaise recipe mixes tradition and innovation to create something wholly new.
What The Land Can Yield
Reflections on cooking an all-local Thanksgiving dinner
Lessons From The Table
Pour a wine to honor its birthright. Pour it with food.
Roussillon: Map and Terroir
Wine is local, a lens of culture: this place, this vineyard, this grape, this grower, this heritage.
A Wine for Old Love
Old love needs a Bacchus wine, not a Cupid wine.
Pinot Noir: Moon, Sun, Mars
Pinot Noir is a tuning fork for terroir. Here’s one way to think about that.
La Tazza e il Cantico: Pairing Wine With Opera
This new series explores linkages of temperament and character, and suggests a new way of writing about wine.
Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, and the Affinities That Belie Origin
A rumination on Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, and what we learn by tasting.
Pinot Noir, Here and There
Eleven stand-out American Pinot Noirs, wines whose fine details and ruby-citrus acidity make them brilliant dining companions.
On Wine Criticism, Intentionality, Terroir, and Aboutness
When I judge a wine critically, I ask myself the usual questions about its color, aromas, flavors, textures, finish. But I also probe the…
Writing About Wine
Wine is visceral, sensual, sensorial. When you begin a story about wine, you must switch on your reader.