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For many years, Chianti Classico has wanted little to do with Chianti. From 1932 until 1996, Chianti Classico was legally a subzone of Chianti. Chianti Classico, however, felt and continues to feel that Chianti blemishes its image. The overall standard of quality of Chianti is lower than that of Chianti... Read More

Not quite the solution to the french paradox. Just before Christmas 2OO1, the research group led by Roger Corder, PhD, at the William Harvey Research Institute in London, stimulated a flurry of excitement by publishing a brief communication in nature. proposing an explanation of the French paradox and of the... Read More

THE HOP CRISIS The celebrations of craft beer producers have a darkening cloud hanging over them. The talk among brewers and distributors in recent months has turned from their recent successes to the possibility of a severe shortage of raw materials for use in the brewing process. While craft brewers... Read More

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc was the first wine from New Zealand I ever tasted. And the second and the third. Talk about starting at the top! Not that I’d heard of the now iconic winery or even that I could differentiate anything more about New Zealand as a winemaking country... Read More

For example, there’s simply been no relief in the bad news department that continues to haunt the decline of the flat-to-mostly-negative US-bottled standard blended brand segment, which has not recorded a single positive growth year since 1994, and dropped yet another couple of percentage points in 2OO5. But, meanwhile, in... Read More

Judging by aggregate sales figures for the first 7 months of 2OO6, Americans are doing a lot of celebrating. Whereas imported wines in general keep creeping higher as a percentage of the overall US wine market, Champagne has always constituted a category unto itself. Sales trends in this unique segment... Read More

The Pinot Noir story is a remarkable one. It’s amazing what “the movie”, whatever you happen to think of it, has wrought in the wine business. What’s more amazing is how long wine professionals have been patiently sniffing, tasting, talking and writing about their pet grape variety to virtually zero... Read More

With cramped Dublin ‘bed-sitters’ today costing as much as San Francisco lofts and Boston studios, it’s no wonder that dive pubs along the Liffey (like the now-toney former navvy-hangout warehouse section of Temple Bar) have mutated into posh saloons and the Irish whiskeys they serve (mixed in with your Cosmos... Read More