AN/2 & Cosme Palacio Blanco 1894 at Barcelona

Tweet The world is better off for places like Barcelona.  Wines such as Anima Negra AN/2 from Majorca’s red callet grape and Bodegas Palacios Cosme Palacio Blanco 1894 from Rioja’s white viura variety don’t make it onto just any wine list.  But at Barcelona Restaurant and Wine Bar, ten minutes off of I-84 in (of all places?) West [...]

Three-Step Classic Wine List Gameplan

Tweet Drawing up the perfect attack on a classic restaurant wine list creates the same adrenaline level NFL coaches experience prepping for Sunday games. At least it seems that way; it’s both exciting and nerve wracking knowing one or two calls can define a dinner’s outcome. Planning is required. Have we worked with the restaurant’s [...]

Grower Champagne Makes Sense

Tweet The last few years taught me that Champagne is wine, not just bottled fireworks poised to explode on special occasions.  Champagne’s food and aperitif friendliness are more interesting to me now than at any other time during my twenty seven year wine zag. I used to zag around Champagne while others zigged straight at it. [...]

Pleiades XX, Thackrey, & Local Three: Authentic Collision

Tweet Some wine is described to be authentic. I have been meaning to build a working definition of authenticity for my own clarification and finally managed to squash a prolonged streak of procrastination after discovering ($25 ****) Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades XX on Atlanta’s Local Three Kitchen & Bar wine list. This adjective that has blossomed into standard wine enthusiast fodder, bandied throughout critical [...]

2011 Wine Highlights Part 1: Wine & Restaurants

Tweet While the best wine and food might still appear on my table over the next couple of weeks, 2011 is quickly shutting down like newly bottled Bordeaux and I catch myself reminiscing over the year that was in wine and food. These musings must not be mistaken for a quintessential nor ultimate reminiscence of [...]

Clos Rougeard 2007- A Wine List Automatic

Tweet Pouring over wine lists before meals is the ultimate public foreplay.  In advance of fine dining reverie, the hunt for favorites, values, rarities, ultimates, and classics is my secret little indulgence.  It’s a moment of truth that determines the tone of an evening’s meal.  I remember the same jittery excitement stepping into Coney Island’s [...]

Erpacrife Nebbiolo-Best Sparkling Wine Ever?

Tweet Rarely do the polarizing forces du jour swirling around wine’s combustible circles, like new world vs. old world, traditional vs. modern, or natural vs. unnatural(?), create radically new standard bearers overnight. Each corner in the world of wine is too steeped in history, nature, method, and skill to be knocked out in a single round. So [...]

3 Reasons Puech-Haut Prestige 2009 Is Top Holiday Wine

Tweet Imagine the convenience of someone delivering two cases of one very perfect red wine to your front door every year at the start of the holiday season.  Not 100 point and $6,000 a case perfect, just perfectly versatile, delicious, and affordable red wine for all the usual and familiar holiday situations. Something to serve at [...]

Calvet-Thunevin Hugo On Turtle Creek Mansion List

Tweet Once again I found myself staring at a classic wine list, this time at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, that was deep in severely marked up classic Bordeaux, Burgundy, and California Cabernet.  Looking for an after dinner bottle to enjoy with some colleagues did  not call for $300 California Cabernet, $600 Burgundy, [...]

De Forville Nebbiolo 2009 – Another Rosenthal Wine Value

Tweet Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchants was table #2 and (*** $20) 2009 De Forville Langhe Nebbiolo was wine #3.  Rosenthal was one of nine importers and distributors showcasing 45 wines in total at the 8th annual Ball Square Fine Wines Grand Tasting. Without too much surprise, Rosenthal’s portfolio offered exciting moments at another chock-a-block event where [...]

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