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Revenge of the Schist

“I really don’t want a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Chardonnay,” I told the waitperson in a restaurant and pointed to a wine on the list. “Please bring me this one listed under Gravel over Clay.” This is the fantasy of a diehard wine terroirist: to have wines identified by soil...
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Back to Burgundy

The Hospices de Beaune provides convalescent and medical services to the citizens of Beaune, the medieval town which is in the heart of the Burgundian wine industry. The Hospices uses the auction of wines made from grapes in its vineyards to help fund its work. Hence the motives of the...
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Gone Hunting

DAVID HUNT • 57 • Winemaker-Owner • Hunt Cellars • Paso Robles, CA Restless, confident and proud, David Hunt is an affable jokester and self-promoter, a lively, coaxing conversationalist with a Carolina drawl. He’s also a fanatic in the lab and crush-room, an inveterate tinkerer when blending. His Hunt Cellars...
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Rogue is Different

This Oregon brewery is perhaps the smallest brewery that you will find in beer stores and bars across the country – widely scattered high-end beer stores and bars, but national nonetheless. Being national certainly hasn’t hurt them, as they get picked in more “best of” lists than almost any other...
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Those Gimbels Guys

This is just some of the history belonging to Gimbel’s Liquors in Brookline’s Washington Square, presently celebrating its 4OTH anniversary. Longevity in the retail business is no easy task to accomplish. Few stores survive ten years, let alone forty but Gimbel’s has stood the test of time even as neighboring...
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GABF

The 24th annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the largest event yet for the Brewers Association, offered beer lovers an unparalleled sampling opportunity and contained a number of surprises for brewers as well. The awards ceremony itself took more than two hours to complete, a perhaps unwanted record for the...
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Ponti’s First Pint of Guinness

Since I had already waited so long to finally try my first taste of Guinness, I figured why not wait just a little bit longer and go straight to the source. Next stop: Dublin, Ireland’s Guinness Storehouse, located on the expansive 64-acre grounds of the St. James’s Gate Brewery. It...
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A Couple of Cape Codders

BILL and DENISE ATWOOD • 54/51 • Chef/Owners • The Red Pheasant, Dennis, MA Patti Page sang about it in 1957 – “If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages here and there.” How many of us today remember Old Cape Cod? Bill and Denise Atwood...
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