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Every observer with even a passing interest in California wine knows the Opus One story of trans-Atlantic collaboration between two of the Twentieth Century’s most visionary wine personalities. What’s less clear to some is the status of the iconic Napa Valley winery since the passing of both Robert Mondavi and... Read More

On book tour mid-January, Eric Asimov, the new york times’ “Chief Wine Critic”, made a whistle-stop at Harvard Coop in Cambridge to reading from his first full-length wine book, How to Love Wine: A Memoir and Manifesto.* The book came about during Asimov’s current post as wine critic, held since... Read More

Consider the Martini.  Iconic, misunderstood, misconstrued.  Of the all drinks in the cocktail cannon, the beverage you are often served as a martini could not be further from its classic incarnation.  Here’s why: 1 A Martini is a drink, not a glass.  Referring to the stemmed, conical-shaped vessel that traditionally... Read More

Although happy to collect the taxes, our federal government has been most uncomfortable admitting that alcohol can provide any benefit, particularly to health.  Divisions of the government, like the National Institutes of Health, and organizations it helps support, such as the American Heart Association and the World Health Organization, try... Read More

SPANISH SHAPE-SHIFTER The grape we usually call tempranillo slyly changes its character and, especially, its name whenever it senses a new ethos.  Probably native to northern Spain, where it is the dominant grape variety, it is Spain’s best grape.  It is best known in the Rioja as tempranillo, and in... Read More

A DRINK WITH . . . MISTY KALKOFEN + PATRICK SULLIVANBRICK & MORTAR To most of us familiar with the cocktail landscape, Misty Kalkofen and Patrick Sullivan need no introduction.  Between the two of them, they’ve logged in 36 years of hospitality, weaving in and out of beloved institutions across... Read More

Current research appears to confirm, and in part explain, some of red wine’s cardiovascular benefits, especially vis-à-vis eating enjoyably.  Work done in Jerusalem at Hebrew University’s Institute of Drug Research demonstrated that components of red wine, perhaps antioxidant polyphenols, vastly reduce the formation of a toxic cholesterol-altering compound following a... Read More

If you think that, you’ve got vision problems: How about Samuel Adams? Boston Lager? Not to mention Narragansett (even if you won’t admit the Lager as “craft”, there’s the excellent Bock and Oktoberfest), and Thomas Hooker, and . . . um . . . New England Elm City . .... Read More

While tequila is beloved by the LUPEC ladies, it isn’t a spirit that saw play pre-Prohibition.  One cocktail that came to be not before but because of the Noble Experiment is the Tequila Sunrise. With stateside boozing illegal, where else were wealthy and fashionable Angelenos and Hollywood stars to booze... Read More