The Rhone Ranger Continues to Dig the Unknown

If you’ve ever read Been Doon So Long, you’d appreciate how well Randall Grahm lives wine, philosophizes wine and satirizes funny behaviors around the industry in shockingly talented writing. Coined by Wine Spectator in 1989 as “The Rhone Ranger”, the pioneer of Rhone grapes in California has never ceased his quest for charting the unknown.

8 Tips for Chinese New Year Wine Pairing

While the tables from Shanghai are a lot different from the tables in Sichuan, or Canton, their expressions of decadence manifest in flavors, spices and techniques. Here are some helpful tips for banquet style wine pairing

Time in a Bottle / Bordeaux

Every time we drink a wine we witness a particular moment of its lifetime. Most of these moments might be amusing but forgettable. On a fortunate day, though, a rare moment captures you and you fall silent…

A Terroir Specialist Talks Shop

Many winemakers claim their wines are from a unique terroir, but whether you could taste it in the wine or not, is another question. Here, Pedro breaks down the elements of terroir and gives a framework to help understanding terroir.

In A Perfect Wine World

If there’s a dream list for wine lovers, working with one of the best wine collections in America would be one of them. Sommelier Ruben Ramiro is one of the lucky few: not only does he have the opportunity to taste

Now Is Time to Buy 2010 Bordeaux

“2010 was a very dry year, particular in the 3 months of summer, we only got 1/3 of regular rainfall. As a result, the berry is much smaller in size, with more focused acidity, sugar (alcohol), and higher skin-juice ratio. 2010 wine has great aging potential.” ~ Christian Moueix, Chateau Petrus

Zen and the Art of Buying Wine (not Diamonds)

OK. You have the vintage chart, respective to each wine region. You have the scores from reputable wine critics. And now you’re ready to pick a bottle, right?  A word of advice before you go: bring the maps, but talk to the locals and seek out the back roads. During a recent trip to Burgundy I tasted […]

photo diary – 30 days in france

October. We picked up a car in Paris and drove through all the towns that had been in our minds. We met many great friends, drank a lot… Here’s flashback from our trip. More interviews and stories to follow. DAY 1/ PARIS. dinner at Chateaubriand DAY 2/ PARIS. lovely long walk on St Germain DAY3/ PARIS. […]

The Island that Pays Tribute: Our Land, Our Wines

My family has mango trees. Because of that background, whenever I eat mangos I have a sweet endorphin reaction that goes beyond the mere taste. Mangos from Meinong, Taiwan, are sweet and full of love. As a kid, we’d arrive on the farms and scream out to our aunts and uncles who would inevitably trot from behind […]

Core of Sea, Core of Grain: Oyster & Sake

In most of the raw bars, you have beers, muscadet or sparkling wines to brighten, reset and prepare the palates for the next oyster. Sake, I imagined, might do a very different magic and potentially intensify the oyster’s effect. Made of fermented rice grain…