Le Pousseur (100% Syrah), Bonny Doon Vineyard, 2008, Central Coast (13.5% abv) There is something transporting about this wine, like being wrapped up in a harlot’s velvet shawl. You enter the room somewhat willingly, thinking you know what you’re in store for, wanting to keep it light and fun, only to find your mind and […]

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If you look around at the wine, beer and spirits media, the “Summer Drinking Recommendations” are ubiquitous. They’re like Ray Bans and Katy Perry songs–turn to the left, you got em.  Step out of the subway?  Bam!  Two people wearing Ray Bans greet you at the top of the stairs. And walk into any bar, […]

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(I took this picture on June 13, 2011 at 12:52 pm) The town of Piesport lies in the Mittlemosel subregion of the Mosel wine region in Germany (you can see the white chapel at the town’s center in the far-left side of the picture).  Here, the Mosel river’s walls rise up to 200 meters (700 feet) in some […]

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Tonight, I finally caught up on my Tour de France 2011 footage.  Watching Cadel Evans fly by the Arc De Triomphe on the way to becoming the first Australian to win the Tour was a moving sight. (It was further enhanced by a couple of German friends left over from the Summer of Riesling concert:  […]

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I was saddened to read that powerhouse Australian winery, Mollydooker, lost over $1,000,000 worth of their 2010 Velvet Glove Shiraz.  And in a forklift accident, no less (462 cases fell 20 feet while being loaded onto a ship). Australian fine wine needs all the help it can get and this bonehead move isn’t helping the […]

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Ecstatic to be leaving Europe today.

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Greetings from Amsterdam (and no, I am not writing you from a smoke-filled coffee shop). Tomorrow, we return to NYC after 93 days in Europe.  Along the way, we have met countless inspiring artisans making wine, beer and spirits in the name of craftsmanship. They toil away in nooks around the world, battling the forces […]

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As we wind our way through the beer roads of Belgium, I must take a moment to pay homage to my colleagues back in NYC.  While we’re chasing down the treasures of the Trappist monks and meeting the ambient yeasts of Brussels’ Lambics, they’re gearing up to light the Olympic torch tonight for the greatest […]

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The Paulinshof estate lies in Kesten, Germany, on a lazy stretch of the Mosel River.  The first historical records for the estate vineyards date back to 936 when it was owned by the St Paulin church in Trier.  Since the 1960’s, its been owned by the Jüngling family. Here is a pic I took of […]

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For some, it is just a steep hill covered in vines. But for geeks like me, it is the Holy Grail of vineyards. And it goes by one name: the “Doctor“.  Two days ago, we climbed it. One of the most famous vineyards in all of Germany, it is a perfectly south-facing slope situated above […]

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Rüdesheim is a wine town.  Surrounded by vineyards and perched at the banks of the Rhine River, it is spectacular to see. For two nights, we sat on our hotel balcony watching the boats pass and the sun set over the water (and a ridiculous amount of trains, tracks and barges rumble past–the Rhine is, […]

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“The production of this wine is a milestone in my life as a wine-grower and marks a break with the variety-over-Terroir dominance under which the Alsace region has suffered so greatly for the past 100 years.” – Jean-Michel Deiss While most of the winemakers of Alsace make single-variety wines from single plots of land, Domaine […]

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I’m addicted.  Unique to Austria, heuriges are informal dining & drinking venues usually attached to a winemaker’s house.  Traditionally, only their latest vintage of wine is served; the food is cold and includes breads, soups, sausages and salads all homemade on the premises. You will find them all over the country, with some bordering on […]

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On a sunny day this April, we made our way to the château of winemaker, Nicolas Joly*, in France’s Loire Valley.  What transpired was the greatest navigational nightmare I’ve ever fallen prey to.  After hours of being squawked at by a maniacal GPS device, we finally rolled up to his estate…this video documents our day […]

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There is a strange, new law in Austria: Any one who does NOT eat Wiener Schnitzel with a glass of Gruner Veltliner on their first night in the country, is to be dragged from their hotel and flogged publicly in the town square. Luckily, we had advance notice of this law.

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