Spring in a Bottle: 20 Great Wines for $20 - May 9, 2012

by Eric Asimov

Spring is a transitional season for wines. In the end, weight, not color, is the crucial factor in selecting bottles. Below are 20 great spring wines for $20 each, presented in no particular order.

RIESLINGFEIER

Rieslingfeier! - February 15th, 2013

by Rieslingfeier

Rieslingfeier, which translates to "a celebration of Riesling," will be a two-day event in NYC this February 15th and 16th, bringing together winemakers, collectors, journalists and Riesling-fanatics from around the world. Events will range from a $500-a-person rare wine dinner to a free, open-to-the-public consumer tasting. (Complete schedule attached, next page.) The following winemakers will participate: A.J. Adam, Thomas Haag, Klaus-Peter Keller, Florian Lauer, Ktharina Prüm and Dorothee Zilliken.

Sense of Restraint About Zinfandels - Dec 20, 2012

by Eric Asimov

...The subject was zinfandel, and our goal was not merely to focus on a year or an appellation. Instead, we set out to see whether we could isolate a particular style that we had in mind...

Profile: Domaine Chevrot et Fils - December 19th

by Bill Nanson

People have described Domaine Chevrot to me as ‘the DRC of Maranges’. So eventually I was lucky enough to get the chance to visit. The domaine is in Cheilly-lès-Maranges, with a commanding view of the Maranges hillside – from here you really do have a view similar to the hill of Corton...

Wines That Make Friends Easily at a Crowded Thanksgiving Table - November 8, 2012

by Eric Asimov

What would happen if Thanksgiving were canceled? The wine panel inadvertently tested this proposition when Hurricane Sandy collided with our annual holiday wine tasting. Every year, our home team gathers for a preliminary Thanksgiving meal. We drink a series of wines with a typical feast, assess their compatibility and make some recommendations.

20 Autumn Wines for $20 - October 18, 2012

by Eric Asimov

Color is not the most significant factor in drinking seasonally — it’s texture and weight. Nights grow longer and days shorter, but like reds and whites, we still have both. Thinking seasonally, Eric Asimov has picked 20 great fall wines, all at the magical price point of $20, where the greatest values reside. They are presented here in no particular order.

"I'll Drink to That!" Episode 15 David Bowler - August 14, 2012

by Levi Dalton

Wine importer and distributor David Bowler has one of the most exciting portfolios in the business. Today he recounts his long history in the New York wine scene and talks a bit about where his company is headed.

Wine’s Sweet Spot Is a $20 Bill - July 24, 2012

by Eric Asimov

What's the right price for a bottle of wine? Silly question, I know. All sorts of prices are right, depending on the quality of the wine, the scarcity, the demand and other economic, social and psychological imperatives. Strictly speaking, a wine can be a great value at $10 or $200, though for most of us, a steal at $200 is small consolation, like a $5 million apartment deemed an excellent deal because its price has dropped by half.

The Mâconnais, Poised for Rediscovery - June 29, 2012

by Eric Asimov

Grapes Born of Volcano and Sea - January 16, 2012

by ERIC ASIMOV

TO drink only the best-known wines from time-honored regions is a little like eating in the same restaurants over and over. You can’t go wrong, perhaps, but without the rewards of exploration, you are missing out on so much more.

This has never been truer for wine lovers than it is today, when more people have more access to great wines from more places than ever before. Yet of all the world’s wine regions well off the beaten path, none is farther removed than the Canary Islands.

The New Rules of Wine - October 2011

by Stan Parish, David Lynch, Brett Martin and Alan Richman

DrVino.com

Why importer Jose Pastor says “no, gracias” to Wine Advocate scores - September 30, 2011

by Dr. Vino

“Things are really changing. People in the trade want to know more first-hand, to visit, to learn, to taste. And consumers too.” He says that it’s easier to undersand wine talk when it is coming from a fellow consumer, who describes a wine with food–or even over food, sharing the wine together. Then there are no points, no “chocolate and vanilla” descriptors.

“Back in the day, there were only two or three guys with a voice. Now there are many. It’s great for wine!”

BIRTH OF A SALESMAN: A new type of wine merchant emerges - 8/9/2011

Call it the boomerang effect.

As the wine world has embraced small growers of late, a shadow has fallen over the once-common concept of the négociant, a merchant who makes wine from bulk amounts of purchased fruit.

But that meaning has been shed recently thanks to a different kind of négociantbringing a small-grower philosophy to the merchant's role.

No one embodies this paradigm shift better than Patrick Piuze in the French village of Chablis. After running a wine bar in Montreal, he moved to Burgundy in 2000…

What's so good about Beaujolais 2010 - July 30, 2011

by Jancis Robinson/FT

"The 2010s are much more typical Beaujolais, a bit lighter in body with less obvious tannin but absolutely stuffed full of the unusually succulent fruit of the Gamay grape, in much purer form than used to be the case when so many Beaujolais winemakers depended on speeded-up fermentations and added yeasts that left the wines smelling of pear drops, rubber and bananas..."

Domaine Chandon de Briailles (Savigny-les-Beaune) -

by John Gilman

Download Article PDF

Psst: A Secret for White Burgundy Lovers - June 13, 2011

by By Eric Asimov

HERE in the heart of the Côte de Beaune, the epicenter for white Burgundy, vignerons in their cellars are offering samples of their 2010 vintage, which is aging in barrels, and pouring tastes of their 2009 wines, which for the most part have just been released. But if you love white Burgundy, lean in close, because I’d like to whisper a suggestion: stock up on the 2008s.

Not only here, but from Chablis in the northwest to the Côte Chalonnais and the Mâconnais to the south, the 2008 vintage was…

Looking for Renewed Magic in Beaujolais - April 11, 2011

by Eric Asimov

YOU don’t have to scratch too far under the surface of most wine lovers to find fond, possibly romanticized memories of a special bottle that changed everything for them.

Before that bottle they may have liked wine well enough. But then, often by chance, they drank a particular glass that opened them up to the range of possibilities in a bottle, transforming them into wine fanatics who forever after would plot ways of repeating that illuminating experience.

Often, the epiphany came after drinking one of the greats: a…

Vouvrays With an Element of Surprise - April 26, 2011

by Eric Asimov

PERHAPS you have not yet been bitten by the chenin blanc bug and transported to a world of luminous wines made in an astounding range of styles. If so, then opportunity is about to pull a cork for you.
Right now in the marketplace are a bevy of superb Vouvrays, many priced gently given their high quality, especially in comparison with those other white grapes of note, riesling and chardonnay.
If I sound a tad breathless, well, so be it. It’s simply that chenin blanc wines offer so much pleasure…

The San Francisco Chronicle

Canary in a wine glass: Drinkers flock to islands' distinct wines - February 20, 2011

by Derrick Schneider, Special to The Chronicle

Four years ago, wine from the Canary Islands was unheard of in America. Unless you were one of the tourists who visit the archipelago each year, you might have assumed that quality grapes couldn't exist 80 miles off the southwestern coast of Morocco.
But these days, Canary Islands wines have become almost a constant in good Bay Area wine shops and restaurants, largely thanks to their sole American importer, Richmond's Jose Pastor.

NJ.com

Huge pleaures from obscure pinot noir - Wednesday, January 05, 2011

by John Foy

San Francisco Chronicle

Porter Creek's Alex Davis: Winemaker to watch - Sunday, January 16, 2011

by Jon Bonné, Chronicle Wine Editor

Porter Creek is like a snapshot from Pinot's past. If you pulled a Rip Van Winkle for the past decade, as Pinot Noir was transformed from porcelain goddess into bodybuilder, you'd feel a certain kinship with winemaker Alex Davis.

"I've made some stubborn choices about not following trends," he says.

Davis and his family have owned their Healdsburg vineyard since 1979 and made Pinot since 1982, when Russian River Valley had barely a scattering of Pinotists. The approach Davis takes is the opposite of the modern style; it's nuanced, pure in its fruit and…

Champagnes Below $40 Regain Pop - December 23, 2009

by Eric Asimov

WARNING: You may assume that what you are about to read is the usual dutiful holiday roundup of Champagnes and sparkling wines. But you would be wrong. Ignore this at your own peril.
Hmm. Wrong tone. Too grim. Not at all the light, exuberant note I’m seeking. Let me try again. Ah, Champagne! Ah, bubbly! Ah, the corks popping anew as we joyously stride forth into the new year! No, even worse...
Includes Bowler wine: Joël Falmet Brut Tradition NV

Jancis Robinson Wine of the Week - Patrick Piuze Chablis - October, 29 2010

by Jancis Robinson

It's always a thrill to encounter a promising new producer, and I'm indebted to Steve Daniel, who used to be the head wine buyer at Oddbins in its glory days, for steering me towards Patrick Piuze, a French Canadian who was introduced to the culture of wine by Marc Chapoutier, Michel's younger brother, at the age of 18 and set off around the wine world. He came back to his native Montreal and started a wine bar but ended up determined to make the stuff himself.

Lured by the…

Zinfandel Steps Back From the Abyss - October 12, 2010

by Eric Asimov

SAD to say, I don’t drink much zinfandel these days. That wasn’t always the case. When I first awakened to the joys of wine back in the 1980s, I was excited about zinfandel. All right, I was excited about any wine, but zinfandel in particular intrigued me. It was full of gorgeous fruit, yet rarely too tannic or too sweet. The grape was singular, grown almost nowhere but in California. It was pure pleasure, and I remember enjoying many wonderful bottles with friends.

LA Times

Son follows in late winemaker Didier Dagueneau's storied footsteps - October 14, 2010

by By Jacqueline Friedrich, Special to the Los Angeles Times

The Frenchman's untimely death in 2008 led many to wonder what kind of legacy would emerge from his vineyards. His son surprised everyone with his inherited perfectionism and deep understanding of wine.

The Evolution of Sonoma Coast Chardonnay - August 2, 2010

by Eric Asimov

CALIFORNIA chardonnays are not nearly what they once were. This makes me very happy. Not so long ago, California chardonnay was thought of by many as a kind of litmus test. Your stance on the wines signified your position on cuisine, culture and, no doubt, politics, religion, the afterlife and the future of the environment. Yes, I exaggerate, but only to emphasize the confounding notion that one’s taste in certain wines is occasionally viewed as emblematic of things far more meaningful...

Johnson Family Sonoma Coast 2008
Oaky, golden…