Blog Index

James Suckling

First Growth 2000 Dinner in Bordeaux

Posted: 02:28 PM ET, 01/16/08

I hosted a dinner in Bordeaux before Christmas at the hotel Les Sources de Caudalie, for the winemakers of four of the five first growths, as well as Alain Vautier of Ausone, which in effect is a first growth. We were talking about the glorious 2005 vintage but they also brought their 2000s to taste together as a reference points. Read more

Bruce Sanderson

Seductive Reds and Stellar Whites at Bouchard Père & Fils

Posted: 03:50 AM ET, 01/16/08

[Note: Bruce Sanderson continues to report from Burgundy, where he is visiting domaines and tasting barrel samples from the 2006 harvest.]

My last appointment Monday was at Bouchard Père & Fils, where winemaker Philippe Prost and managing director Stéphane Follin-Arbelet showed me a range of 27 reds and 14 whites. Read more

James Laube

Harlan '97 Cabernet Polarizing to Harlan Too

Posted: 03:46 PM ET, 01/15/08

Bill Harlan extended an invitation to meet over lunch after the holidays. "No agenda," he said, "let's just catch up."

Luckily for me I had a topic in mind and Harlan was more than game. Yesterday’s visit at Julia’s Kitchen in Napa provided the perfect opportunity to talk about the 1997 Harlan Estate Napa Valley Cabernet. Read more

James Molesworth

A Culinary Tundra Continues to Thaw

Posted: 12:33 PM ET, 01/15/08

With the Green Bay Packers going deep into the NFL playoffs, I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between their home field, Lambeau Field, and the culinary landscape of the New York's Upper West Side. Both have been known as a "frozen tundra" for quite a while (though Packer fans, please note that by definition, tundra is frozen). Read more

Harvey Steiman

Price, Pleasure and the Power of Suggestion

Posted: 12:32 PM ET, 01/15/08

In a scientific study just reported, Caltech researchers measured brain waves in 21 test subjects as they sampled wines. The subjects' pleasure center got more excited when they thought they were drinking more expensive wines.

Wine marketers have known that for years, but the MRI evidence confirms it. Read more

James Suckling

Silly Wine Studies and Slow News Days

Posted: 12:31 PM ET, 01/15/08

Did any of you hear or read the story about a California Institute of Technology "study" that proved that people are influenced by the price when assessing the quality of a wine? In other words, the majority of the 21 people in the test preferred the expensive wine. Read more

Bruce Sanderson

Cool Wines

Posted: 04:14 AM ET, 01/15/08

[Note: Bruce Sanderson continues to report from Burgundy, where he is visiting domaines and tasting barrel samples from the 2006 vintage.]

What I keep hearing is that 2006 is a “cool” vintage. Read more

James Suckling

Amarones, Lunch and Dinner

Posted: 05:36 PM ET, 01/14/08

I had lunch on Saturday with a friend from Los Angeles and a couple of his wine collector buddies in Santa Monica at a restaurant called Locanda Portofino. It was good, simple Italian food—things like soft and creamy burrata cheese with Parma ham or a short pasta with squid in a spicy tomato sauce. Read more

James Molesworth

A Glass Ceiling for Chile?

Posted: 04:16 PM ET, 01/14/08

Wines are like friends. I particularly like wines that are like those friends you bump into after you haven’t seen them for a while. Sometimes they’ve lost weight and look great. Others show the wear and tear of life and you remember why you lost touch with them in the first place. Read more

James Laube

A Standoff in the Homemade Wine Showdown

Posted: 03:46 PM ET, 01/14/08

Midway through Saturday’s tasting of homemade wines, one of my friends summed up what had transpired: “What Mother Nature giveth, Father Time taketh away.”

We uncorked more than 20 wines in the span of three hours and there were some wonderful surprises, a few duds, a few corked bottles, yet overall enough evidence to suggest that even amateurs can make pretty good wine, as the homies stood up to some of the big guns. Read more

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