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Spring Drinking

HOPEFULLY by the time this article is published the sun will be shining and Jack Frost will have been put to bed for another year. Spring has finally sprung in New England and it’s time for a little “spring drinking”. Our clients’ palates are changing once again from mostly heavy...
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Rum’s New Targets

Some of my fondest earliest experiences as an entry level drinker, many decades ago, centered on a broad variety of rum cocktails – from Frozen Daquiris and Zombies to a fabulous concoction that my late, great rum-loving father created with an antique shaker. Just watching my Dad’s ceremonious preparations was...
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Julio & Juliot Viola

JULIO & JULITO VIOLA • 51 & 25 • Winery Impresarios • Bodegas del Fin del Mundo • Patagonia, Argentina Founders of a handsome, high-tech, space age winery, and developers of two (and counting) turnkey satellite wineries for investors, the Violas are riding the gold rush wine wave in Southern...
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Alcohol Content…Why So High?

Let’s examine whether an increase from the 12 or 13 percent, to which we have been accustomed in table wine, to 16 or 17 percent is likely to influence either the adverse or beneficial effects of wine upon health. To ask a question whose answer seems obvious, what has changed...
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Baltimore Original

Starting with his eponymously named pub in Baltimore, he has actively worked in the business since 198O. In the mid-nineteen eighties, Sisson decided he wanted to add a brewpub to his restaurant. After determining that Maryland law did not allow for on-premise brewing, Sisson and others petitioned the state legislature...
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Sonoma-Cutrer-Timeless

I took advantage of winemaker Terry Adams’s recent visit to Boston to catch up on the doings at Sonoma-Cutrer, whose wines I’ve been drinking since the beginning. Adams has been on hand since the winery opened, initially assisting Bill Bonetti, the founding winemaker, then succeeding him in 1991 when Bonetti...
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No One Saw This Coming

Massachusetts has always known a thing or two about astonishing history-making upsets against seemingly impossible odds. In 1775, it was all about a ragtag militia group of passionate guerilla-like Minutemen routing a mighty and well-trained superior fighting force of British Red Coats from behind the stonewalls of Lexington and Concord,...
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Sideways, Down-Under, Or Is It Kiwi-Land?

Conceivably, but there’s hardly enough to go around. This, however, shouldn’t prove a major deterrent to the true Pinot devotee. Anywhere in the world that it grows the finest examples of this now ultra-trendy wine are produced in limited quantities. Longtime fans have come to accept the concept of rarity...
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Santa Rita Revisited

The collective consciousness of connoisseurs took cognizance of Chilean wines only a few years ago, attention captured by emerging quality and, in the face of exponential increases elsewhere in the world, reasonable prices. Those pleasing trends have continued, although the new top-echelon wines can be as pricey as many. Wine...
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What Are We Tasting For?

Discerning wine consumers are curious and hungry for information that often goes beyond what is in the glass, where it came from and how it was made. They are interested in wines from new places, want updates about the new faces at their favorite vineyards, and are eager to learn...
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