Dunkelweizen, Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu, München, Germany
(5.0% alc)
You gotta love it when your friends prepare to move and unload their stuff on you. Especially when its their booze.
A good friend of mine, Tamara, has just moved to London to begin a new adventure overseas. The fortunate thing for me is that she had amassed quite a wine and beer collection [...]
Principio (100% Ciliegiolo), Antonio Camillo, 2008, Tuscany
(13.5% Alc)
“Hey, after you go in search of God, can you bring me back some vines?”
And so it was that an obscure grape varietal named Ciliegiolo left its home in Spain and came to rest in Tuscany. Or so its rumored…and only God knows the truth.
Walking the pilgrimage from [...]
Baltic Porter, Oy Sinebrychoff Ab, Kerava, Finland
(7.2% alc)
I hereby declare that all our soldiers be supplied with the latest in body armor technology, lightweight night-vision goggles and Camelbak drinking systems filled with Imperial Porter.
In an attempt to fill out my beer list at Hearth and Terroir with some eclectic, international styles of Porter, I stumbled [...]
What’s life without the barrel?
It seems that everywhere I look these days, my favorite breweries are releasing tricked-out, new barrel-aged beers.
Port barrels, whisky barrels, sherry casks, madeira casks, wine barrels. Its kind of dizzying.
What’s next? Monkey barrels? Fish barrels? Oil drums? (Who knows, perhaps an Exxon Light Crude Porter would pair beautifully with my grilled Rib Eye [...]
Autumn is the bite of a harvest apple. – Christina Petrowsky
All hail the glorious apple. Man’s relationship with this versatile and forbidden fruit goes back thousands of years. Today, there are over 55 million tons of apples produced worldwide each year…now that’s some serious fanaticism.
I was tasked to bring in 6-8 new ciders for our [...]
English Pale Ale, Blandford Fly, Badger Brewery, Hall and Woodhouse, Dorset, England
(5.2% Alc)
In the small, sleepy town of Blandford Forum in southern England, a tiny predator lurks at the banks of the River Stour.
Rumors abound as to its actual size; some claim it is mere millimeters, while others claim it is the size of a [...]
Cabernet Sauvignon, Cape Winemakers Guild, Kanonkop, 1997, Stellenbosch
(14% Alc)
What if Yoda made wine? And what if instead of focusing on intergalactic peace, the Jedis gathered to taste through barrels of Pinotage and hammer out the intricacies of pruning and soil characteristics?
And what if after hours of intense debate, they chose their favorite wine from that [...]
Pineau d’Aunis, Adonis, La Grapperie, 2005, Loire Valley
(13% Alc)
I’ve always liked the freaks, the misfits, those that are labeled “quirky”. They’re not easily categorized and usually take some time to understand.
As wine consumers, we swim in a sea of decently made, yet entirely forgettable wine. But sometimes a wine grabs you by the nuts and [...]
Bourgueil (100% Cabernet Franc), Les Galichets, C&P Breton, 2007, Loire Valley
(12% alc)
I found myself sipping on this wine last week and was reminded how hypnotic Cabernet Franc can be. Fragrant and juicy with crisp acidity, it is often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon in other wine regions, but in Bourgueil (pronounced “boor-geye”) it is king and [...]
Seattle rules. For an NYC boy like me to get to see more than a sliver of the sky at a time, it’s a pleasure, but to see the entire sky at once was beyond therapeutic. And the sheer amount of art? Whoa. I thought the East Village was artsy, but its got nothing on [...]
