DISQUS

"Alto-Adige area" - I think you mean Friuli. Alto Adige is quite far (relatively). And Friuli has many more unique and interesting wines.

btw, the 2002 Movia Veliko Rosso rocks.

That posts on that thread by Parker and "Mao" Squires were shameful. Frankly, you can't refrute illogical comments because, well, yeah, they're illogical. Just ignore.

You get worse email than I do.

(Almost off-topic...) Wine Universities/Schools teach winemakers how to control and manipulate their product. This is in the Adaptation category. Prevention, on the other hand, is in the Natural category - not generally done in our world. We'd rather filter something than have a product that doesn't require filtering. Why have diversity in the vineyards when you can use Round-up and other pesticides/chemicals?

Ah, see, here's Dell illustrating my point:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/...

Scroll down to "Why Windows Vista on Dell" and you learn that "GOOD" (512K of memory) is GREAT FOR "Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games" (Please, don't spew laughter too much here. Well, okay, go for it.)

It's hard to believe that Dell will sell you a computer with an OS that needs so much memory that it's only good for booting. That's one de-luxe boat anchor!

Sorry, but Microsoft has been the lamest major software company for-ever. Think about Word and Excel 10-15 years ago. Now today. What advancements have they made? Yeah, I can't think of one either, much less 20. How is it that they are still a little awkward to use, rather being perfected? Seriously, how can they programs not be perfect at this point?

But they look good compared to their OSs. Each successive OS requires a much faster computer, rather than, what would make sense, a slower computer. Just think for a second (assuming you've been using an MS OS over then last 10-15 or 20 years) how often your computer has crashed. How often it has needed to be rebooted. Does this not make the case for Microsoft being one of the worst tech companies in history? I mean, aggravation must count. Speed must count. Time wasted must count. I do have to say they did a great job of elminating the competition, but this was not a benefit to consumers.

As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft has had so many chances to kick some ass and can't deliver the score. They are props, not jets.

Very good article, Gabriella!

Two things: Perhaps you can tell me how to identity a bottle that is fresh, less than 9 months old...? (Yeah, this is the problem...particularly on the West Coast, where many wines take an extra 4-6 months to get here (i.e., East Coast gets it in April, West Coast gets it in October).

Fear of Food is Such a Big Thing in the U.S.
It's funny how the food that people should fear is the food most of them eat regularly.
Wait, I meant sad, not funny.

I wonder if sherry simply suffers from the "you need to try something 20 or so times before you get to like it" rule?* Before delving seriously into wine, I drank a lot of Harvey's Bristol Cream. With food and by itself. Did you get a sense of people at the end of this wine class that most or all who didn't like sherry before do now?

*Besides people not getting the ones that are supposed to be fresh/very young actually getting it that way - and thanks for reminding me about this - something I knew before but had forgotten.

One thing I've noticed (but my sample size is small) is that wine geeks are practically afraid of drinking sherry. Beer? No problem. But sherry? It's, "I'll pass on that." This only changes at the end of the meal when they suddenly become willing to drink a sweet sherry as a dessert wine. But paring dry, quality sherry with food? No way, Pepe!

It would be cool to see some photos of inside the store.

"By the way, does anyone know if statcounter takes account of readers who are getting my content via RSS readers? " - No. I think the only way to get a count is to have an Ad/image in your feed. Anyway, that's what makes it extra tough to make any kind of accurate count.

Please, please, please - do not mention HITS. They couldn't be more meaningless! Every photo on a page is a hit, for example.

Please, please, please - do not mention Webalizer numbers. They're meaningless as they count every spider's visit in detail and every spider skews/counts differently.

I see no mention of Statcounter numbers - a damn lot of people (incl. me) pay/use them. Or what about Bloglines subscribers (which was pretty meaningful until recently when Google Reader numbers would became much more telling - but those, I believe, remain unknown to everyone outside of Google).

I want to know how that bottle stands up like that!

I didn't know about this book until I too got the press release. Hope to see the book sometime!

I've shared a bottle of this and also tasted it and the not-yet-released 1996. I really like this style, but they're definitely not for everyone. I also have a bottle of the 1995 sitting in my cellar...I think I want to pick up a few more before drinking that one. - One Track Mind

Hmmm... I think if you were to poll top Spanish winemakers, by far the #1 story would be the excellent scores just received by Spanish wines in the new Wine Advocate by new writer Jay Miller. (To me, this is the Spanish wine story of the year, not just the week, ...and it's just days old.)

With five Spanish wines scoring, for the first time, 100 pts in the Wine Advocate, this elevates Spanish wines in the eyes of those who were ignorant of their quality.

The new Wine Advocate also has 305(!) dry Portugese wines reviewed by Mark Squires, with Quinta do Crasto being recognized as the top winery.

"Jack of all trades, master of none"...except me, of course. I'm trying to be a demi-master of many of them.

Benjamin: The US is under-regulated with regards to INDUSTRIAL food safety - you just have to look at how Smithfield handles Hog pollution to understand this. Conversely, the US is over-regulated with regards to small farmers and producers, and in fact, treats everyone and everything like it's a mega-industrial producer.

The thing about all of the big government agencies, whether its the FDA or whomever, is the people running them ALL come from big food and big ag. And that's who they cater to. Little guys have no say and real common sense goes out the window. So you have tastelss UHP milk rather than raw milk. So you have idiotic warning labels (like sulphites in wine; they're in lots of foods but only wine has a warning on the label). Nor is there any proof that drinking wine causes birth defects. Drinking an excessive amount of anything can harm a mother and fetus...but wine is again singled out. I could go on and on and on...

Great find, Gabriella! I checked, and I see it's available in the US via Eric Solomon. Their profile doesn't mention biodynamics, but I've emailed them as to get the real scoop. :)

Loved your story!

Adding the varietal would be a tremendous boost in sales. (Allowing any bottle shape/color would help a region like Alsace, too.)

But saying the consumer doesn't want to know who the producer of a wine is so, very, very wrong.

I doubt we'll ever see true wine label reform in Europe. Instead, they'll argue about it forever and while watching others come in take a much bigger chunk of thier market.

We've been to that market (in December, 1999) - I am so envious that it's within walking distance of you! I particularly remember all of the fish.

"*BTW while writing this, it actually took the SlowFood webpage approximately 15 minutes to load. I wonder if there is a connection….?"

Um, Ryan...didn't Gabriella tell you to NOT use the New York dial-up phone number?! :)

Hi Joel,

May I disagree? I find Wine Spectator to be strong as a wine lifestyle/travel magazine, but weak as a wine learning magazine. I also think you have to learn trust your own taste, rather than trust those ratings.

Here's what I recommend: Find a knowledgable wine merchant near you, tell this person what you like and get his/her recommendations. You'll score more hits this way than choosing from High Scoring wines from a consumer wine magazine.

You open a bottle you don't like? Cap it, put it in the fridge. Try some the next night (after it's been out of the fridge for enough time to be at the right temperature). Still no good? Try again next night (or whatever). I've found that wines I don't like the day I open them eventually come around become quite enjoyable. Especially, young Burgundies.

- Jack

Joanne and I are going for Two Hundred!

Also, I would have really liked to go to this dinner; hopefully next year they'll do it in San Francisco (and then alternate every year).