Featured Articles

The good wine folk of the region avoid the adjective Alsatian, preferring the awkward use of the noun, Alsace, as adjective, i.e., “Alsace wine” in fear of confusion with the British term for German shepherd.  They should be reassured: their wines are not dogs. I like to imagine that Rodney... Read More

From the earliest days of commercial brewing, consumers have relied on an informal patchwork of descriptions to differentiate the beers available to them.  If one brewer’s beers were deemed too smoky, people knew and told one another.  If another brewer had managed to produce a stable product capable of lasting... Read More

March is one of Lupec’s favorite months because it marks not one but two very special holidays. On March 8th we’re thrilled to join Lupec ladies across the nation in raising a glass in honor of International Women’s Day. Just a little over a week later falls St. Patrick’s day,... Read More

The summer before entering business school, Ian Stanczyk decided to do a “fun” project: build an iPhone app that would tell him when his bartender friends were working.  An early iteration of the app was called “Boston Flip”, after Stanczyk’s signature cocktail at the time.  After a few months, he... Read More

Last October, three Irish distillers were sitting on the stage at WhiskyFest New York.  The audience: very serious aficionados who’d paid hundreds of dollars to be there.  The deep subject: Understanding Irish Whiskey.  Colum Egan of Bushmills was leading the audience through a tasting of Bushmills 21 year old.  Don’t... Read More

Recently a handsome gentleman – who knows his way around ladies but not around cocktails – asked me to teach him how to make a Margarita. “I can do better than that,” I said, “I can teach you how to make any citrus-y concoction your little heart desires.”  True mixology... Read More

TJ DOUGLAS, along with his wife Hadley, has changed the way people shop for wine. Their two Urban Grape locations (Chestnut Hill and Boston’s South End) could be mistaken for retail boutiques, not liquor stores.  Sleek, stylish and sophisticated, the Urban Grape is among a new wave of small stores... Read More

Some might liken science to sausage making.You really don’t want to witness the process. Fits and starts, backtrack and redo, and painstaking (emphasis on pain) review don’t begin to describe what happens before respectable publication of results. And then, and then, somebody will publish contrary findings. Let’s look at one... Read More

0regon’s wine reputation rests squarely on the high quality of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. The state’s Pinot Gris has also hit the radar screen of many wine lovers. Yet, even after a few decades of consistently outstanding production, 0regon Chardonnay remains an untold story outside of its region. Invisible though... Read More

Tuscany is most generous in sharing its treasures. Some come in bottles. I’d like to call attention to one of its less familiar, more affordable wines, Morellino di Scansano – sangiovese informed, grown in the region’s southwest bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea. We’ve not heard much about this portion of the... Read More