Author: Stephen Meuse

CAMDEN VALLEY ROAD runs east-west from Sandgate, Vermont across the state line into Washington County, New York.   It’s a winding, two-lane country road with hardly any traffic on it, and it’s partially … <span class="entry-title-primary">Historic embrace</span> <span class="entry-subtitle">The love affair between tree and vine goes way back. Here's their story.</span>Read more

Decanting wine conjures visions of cobwebby bottles, guttering candles, crystal goblets, and white-gloved butlers. Performed primarily to relieve wines of sediment, the technique that’s known as the soft decant once involved … Gimme air!Read more

The hip, cozy watering hole known as Backbar occupies a back room of  Journeyman restaurant in the scrappy Boston satellite city of Somerville.  With its usual team of  cocktail jockeys off … Field blends have something to say, but is anyone listening?Read more

THE SKETCH AT LEFT is a bit of graffiti scratched by a first century Roman who may have been keen to have some fun caricaturing then Emperor Nero – as some … Of sassy barmaids, drinking by the numbers, and barbarian mannersRead more

            THE STORY OF HOW a genial Swiss wine importer named Christoph Künzli undertook the recovery of the Boca vineyards in Italy’s Piedmont region when they were … Is there a bias against the blend?</br>Read more

LAST WEEK A FRIEND showed up with a bottle of 20 year-old grand cru white Burgundy that for some reason had rather fully oxidized despite having been kept in a wine-friendly … <span class="entry-title-primary">Of orange wine, faded jeans, and shabby chic</span> <span class="entry-subtitle">What distinguishes intentionally and accidentally oxidized white wine?</span>Read more

FOR AMERICANS, France’s Loire Valley is familiar as the source of the lively, mineral-inflected white wines of Sancerre and Muscadet. The region is also home to a broad, if less frequently … Light, appetizing, <em>chilled</em> Loire reds </br>Read more

CENTRAL BOTTLE  WAS POURING three so-called orange wines at its most recent Thursday Night Wine Bar event.   We’ve written twice before on a category (I’ll cite those posts momentarily), that … The House of OrangeRead more

IN WEDNESDAY’S BOSTON GLOBE FOOD SECTION we reported on our crawl of newish, higher-end burger joints in Atlanta, but last week we ducked out of town to snatch a few days in … Québec, au bar, en brefRead more

Was the deed done by Mother Nature, in the vineyard, with her little heat index?  Or was it done by Mr. Winemaker, in the cellar, by means of a doubled-barreled roto-fermenter? … Of horsepower, megapixels, thread count, and alcohol in Napa cabernetRead more

AXA is a big French insurance company that also owns a number of important wine properties. The wine part of the business is run by Englishman Christian Seely whose blog I … Tokai: How they get the sweet inRead more

A WINEMAKER FORTUNATE ENOUGH to have a vineyard within a prestige appellation is entitled to the cachet the name conveys and earns a correspondingly high price for his wine. Another, whose … Drinking One Tier down</br>Read more