After a decadent first course, I love serving sausages cooked in a crisp pinot grigio as a second course. The wine adds a layer of flavor and makes a light sauce to serve with the sausages. A green salad is all you need to make this a simple main course. Serves 4 1/4 cup olive…
Time Changes
The old saying, “The more things change the more they stay the same,” may apply in many areas of our 2022 daily lives, but I realized recently by walking through my wine cellar how it didn’t really apply to wine. The saying may have been prophetic a while back for things like political or economic…
California Crush Report
Most consumers are well aware of how impacted they are by inflation — and each industry that has to explain why its prices have gone up has a slightly different explanation. Whether it’s supply chain issues, trucking problems, delays at sea, raw material shortages or labor issues, none are the only reasons. Several explanations apply…
Wine With Food May Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk
Drinking a little wine with dinner may help lower risks of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study. Researchers examined the effect moderate drinking may have related to new-onset type 2 diabetes among nearly 312,400 adults from the UK Biobank who self-reported themselves as regular alcohol drinkers. During an average of nearly 11 years of…
Wine List Dilemmas
One of the headaches of modern life, especially post-pandemic, comes while dining out and searching for a decent bottle of wine. We study the wine list, trying to find something we can afford. Half the items are only vaguely familiar and the rest are priced beyond our budgets. You are not alone. Most Americans aren’t…
Australian University Finds New Strategy to Prevent Smoke Taint in Wine Grapes
Researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, have found a way to prevent smoke taint from fires ruining grape crops. Professor Kerry Wilkinson from the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at the university, said that their team investigated the use of activated carbon (AC) fabric bags to prevent grapes from absorbing smoke. These prevented…
In Praise of Cheap
Oh, the mystique that some people ascribe to wine in their rush to canonize it out of all proportion to what it really is, or should be: a beverage. Or the denunciation some people heap on inexpensive bottles. I have heard elitist oenophiles use terms to disparage wine they wouldn’t deign to try. I reflect…
Coq au Vin: A French Country Cooking Classic
The year: 52 B.C. The scene: The Battle of Gergovia, in modern-day Auvergne, France, between the Romans, led by Julius Caesar, and the Gallic people, led by Vercingetorix. The day before the battle, the story goes, Vercingetorix sent a rooster to Caesar as a warning about the bravery and fierceness of the French troops he…
Are Sulfites in Wine Bad for Me?
Anytime you come down with a headbanger after a glass or two of wine, it’s easy to blame the much-maligned sulfites in the drink for why you feel beaten down. But this preservative has for the most part been bestowed an undeserved bad rap. First, a little background. Sulfites are chemical compounds, or more precisely,…
Pink Takes Its (Rightful) Place
There was a time not terribly long ago when winemakers had a deep, dark secret: The wines they were drinking were made just for themselves. One man, who had made some pretty beefy and concentrated red wines, told me in 2007 that he made a light rose just for himself. He laughed and called it…
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