Wine Tasting

Siblings Fabien and Emilie Brotons were pouring wine from their family estate Clos de l'Ours winery.

March 9, 2017 2

Millésime Bio 2018 Slated for Late January in Montpellier

Millésime Bio, said to be the world’s largest trade fair devoted to organic wine, has announced its 2018 dates and a return to Montpellier: it will take place from Monday 29 January to Wednesday 31 January next year at the

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Duck Confit Cake and Domaine Moulin-la-Viguerie Tavel Wine

March 3, 2017 12

Provençal Pairings: Wine with Food
A Well-Traveled Tavel

It isn't often that I get wines straight off the plane from the vineyard in France. But, this week, that is exactly (well, sort of) what happened. You see, Sandra Gay-Moulines, attaché de communication for the Syndicat Viticole de l'Appellation Tavel, got a couple of bottles direct from the winery, whose owner, Gaël Petit, happens to be president of the Syndicat. Sandra gave them to Susan and Towny, who brought them back to States, and then they shipped them to me. See? Direct from the winery!

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Rosé wines served at Vinisud masterclass

February 16, 2017 2

Vinisud 2017 Masterclass: Rosé Diversity in Ten Glasses

Abandon the notion that rosé is cheap and uncomplicated.

Anyone who still clings to this view would surely have shaken it had he or she attended the masterclass at Vinisud 2017 led by Sarah Abbott MW and Elizabeth Gabay MW [...]

September 20, 2016 12

DOMAINE SAINT ANDRIEU IS WELL WORTH THE DRIVE UP THE HILL

Deep in the heart of the Var, north of Brignoles, and a wee bit past the tiny predominantly organic village of Correns, there is a long and winding road just off the Grand Rue (also called the D45). Soon after making that turn, on to Le Collet de Recoux, that [...]

August 12, 2016 25

Musings of a Wine Maven
“Has a Good Beat … Easy to Dance to”

Raise your hand if you immediately recognize this title as coming from Dick Clark’s American Bandstand “Rate a Record” segment. Hmm, not as many hands went up as I thought would. Perhaps, readers of this blog were busy watching Julia Child’s The French Chef or Graham Kerr on The Galloping Gourmet or, as I think about it, perhaps many readers were not yet born. Dick Clark’s legendary TV show, on the air from 1952 to 1989, showcased at least one band and played the Top 40’s songs to which gaggles of teenagers danced the hour away.

I am reminded of Dick Clark as I walk down the overstocked aisles in wine superstores these days and note the liberal use of “shelf talkers,” touting this wine and that wine [...]

August 6, 2016 13

Provençal Pairings: Wine with Food
Tasting Tavel

Four years ago, almost to the day, I was at a dinner party for which each of the eight guests was asked to bring a rosé to include in a blind tasting. The wines came from all around the world, and no one wine was duplicated. One of the wines presented was a Tavel; its dark hue was unfamiliar to us and assumptions of sugar content and [...]

July 19, 2016 8

THE STORY OF RÉGINE SUMEIRE’S “PÉTALE DE ROSE” ROSÉ

After I read the invitation to a winetasting of “Pétale de Rose” rosé back in spring of 2015, I was confused. The rosé bearing this name appeared to be made at two different domaines: Château Barbeyrolles and Château Tour de l’Évêque. Muddling the picture [...]

May 3, 2016 0

Coteaux Varois en Provence Sponsors Salon du Millésime 2015

Picture, if you will, a garden flanked by soaring Italian cyprus, a graceful five-star inn built atop a Roman villa, and a vineyard conserving 88 Provençal grape varieties, all on the premises of an 11th-century Benedictine Abbey, classified as an historical monument. Cover it with [...]

February 14, 2016 11

LA NUIT EN ROSÉ TITILLATES THE SENSES

I drove along the snow-covered roads of New England to New York City last Saturday to attend a “Rosé Garden Party.” Who thinks of a garden party about rosé—the quintessential [...]

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