De Forville Nebbiolo 2009 – Another Rosenthal Wine Value

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 sellers [...]

2009 Beaujolais Tasting Highlights and Controversy

Seventeen tasters eagerly participated in our highly anticipated 2009 blind Beaujolais tasting. While the air in my home was continually pierced by clinking glassware, the halls of Boston University’s Elizabeth Bishop Wine Resource Center were most definitely hushed while several of its students, graduates, and instructors were firmly planted around our tasting table dissecting glass after [...]

A Taste of Loire, Burgundy, and Bordeaux: Replaying Four Remarkable Wines

Louis needed to miss our 2000 Bordeaux tasting.  Instead, he was happily conflicted by a commitment to host dinner at his home for a group of thirty like-minded, active community members dedicated to the preservation and improvement of a local school system’s already profound results.   Louis was intending to pair each of the evening’s [...]

Questioning the Sensibility of Bordeaux’s New Found Irrelevance

Eric Asimov helped me feel old, out of the loop,  and crusty today simply because I prefer Bordeaux.  Please do not crucify me en masse, and allow me to cling to a hard earned 51-year-old point of view that many of the world’s finest wines are products of Bordeaux as you join me on a visit [...]

Two Styles of Cotes du Rhone for Now and Later

I can’t have enough transforming wine in my cellar; tannins melting and fruit evolving creating advanced and sensually pleasing characteristics to be enjoyed down the line.  I am hooked on it.  But inventory and time is money and it makes sense to seek out efficient cellaring strategies.  Buoyed by just enough concurrence from fellow Rhone fans on [...]