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Syrah and Sirah have both become almost as common as Cabernet and Merlot. When I first started waiting tables in the late 197Os, however, it was Petite Sirah, not Syrah or Sirah, which first appeared on the restaurant’s wine list. The restaurant, which had cuisine with a Provence-Nouvelle cuisine theme,... Read More

The ruling concerns only wine, not beer and spirits, and throws out as unconstitutional New York and Michigan’s restrictions on direct wine shipments from out-of-state if in-state vintners can ship their wines within and beyond state borders. It will not open the floodgates and let wineries immediately start shipping their... Read More

Brothers Donnie and Lee Thibodeau (co-Chairmen) have joined forces with CEO Bob Harkins and distiller Chris Dowe* to launch Maine Distilleries, the Pine Tree State’s first commercial distillery. Their idea was to transform potatoes – that starchy tuber with somewhat tarnished acclaim among diet-crazed Americans – into premium vodka, a... Read More

Cordials and liqueurs may not pack much of a punch with their alcohol content but there’s no denying their powerful impact on the industry over the last few years. Long considered minor players in the cocktail arena, cordials have today become forceful contenders and are presently vying with rum for... Read More

Less chic, less compact, it sprawls over a much larger area of bewilderingly diverse terroirs, which, when properly fit with grape variety and growing methods, yield wines as fine as anywhere. Sonoma County, now with more than a dozen appellations, can offer cool sites suitable for sparkling wines and delicate... Read More

Then I grew up and had a beer, and ran into porters and stouts. The relationships of these beers makes for one very, very messy Venn diagram, with more circles than a UFO nut’s cornfield, a lot of scratched-out lines and erasures, and some really odd intersections. Porter definitely came... Read More

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... Read More

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... Read More

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... Read More