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Beer’s Still Here

Get out of your beer rut! While the money that pays most of your bills still comes from moving those pallets, there are some real opportunities for fun – and profit – in beer these days. Heineken Premium Light has put new spark in the light beer market, Mexican beer...
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A Grand Cru From Hershey?

During my first pilgrimage to Tain-L’Hermitage in 199O, the smell of chocolate, not wine, filled the air. I learned that Tain was not only home to Hermitage wine, but also to one of France’s most famous chocolate producers, Valrhona. Given the proximity of the Rhone Valley’s most famous cru, it...
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Garden of Robert Eden

Robert Eden paid us a visit, bearing his tasty wines and his biodynamic viticultural beliefs. The wines are produced at Eden’s garden, Chateau Maris, in the Minervois La Liviniere appellation of ancient Languedoc in Mediterranean southwestern France. This is beautiful country, once known for prolific production of bulk wines, now...
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Dead or Just Missing

With the recent demise of Wine X magazine coming as little surprise to most people in the industry, it raises a question or two about the market they were supposedly catering to. The twenty-one to mid-twenties age group is an often-ignored segment of our market. The scarborough wine market report’s...
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Who Likes Hot Beer?

The jury’s still out on which category malternatives fit into. Just when you think they’re yesterday’s news a new flavor comes out, or a new package, or a new positioning, and suddenly malternatives are hot again. That’s the nature of “hot”. It’s that fast-moving part of the market, whether it’s...
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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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Always Hungary For Dessert Wine. Tokaj Rules!

This April, I traveled east across the vast Great Hungarian Plain to visit this corner of the world little known to Americans. Near my destination, the Zemplen hills rose to the north of the train and vineyards appeared in their foothills opening their skirts to the Great Hungarian Plain. The...
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