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James Molesworth

Bernie Gassin: 1924–2007

Bernard A. Gassin never really did understand how I made a living out of writing about and drinking wine. Born in 1924, Bernie had a bit of a Depression-era mentality, and he always wanted to make sure things were OK for his family.

During one of my early meetings with him—it was more like an interview—he quizzed me about my curious line of work since, after all, I was dating his daughter. Read more


Bruce Sanderson

Stepping Back in Time

A week ago I visited Maria-Teresa Mascarello at Bartolo Mascarello in Barolo. Mascarello’s is a traditional, no-frills operation: cement fermentation tanks, a basket press and nothing but large oak casks. It looked like nothing had changed in the last 50 years. Read more


James Laube

Tasting The Donum Estate Pinot Noirs

With harvest 2007 completed, there’s a pause in the action at Donum Estate in Carneros, and yesterday I joined Anne Moller-Racke and Kenneth Juhasz to taste a vertical of the winery’s Pinot Noir.

Donum is a fairly new winery, with its first vintage in 2001. Read more


James Suckling

Yquem for Breakfast?

I was thinking this morning as I was getting into my first few 2005s in the tasting room of Les Sources de Caudalie that I probably won’t be tasting 1,000 reds in a couple of years when the 2007 Bordeaux are coming into the market in bottle. I don’t want to say that the region’s most recent harvest is bad, but let’s just say it isn’t going to be easy to find outstanding wines like in 2005. Read more


James Suckling

Just Another Day in Bordeaux

I wrote this first thing this morning when I started tasting a range of wine, before going to a tasting and lunch at Léoville Las Cases, the second growth St. Julien:

"It’s always a bit difficult for me to get started in the morning. Read more


Bruce Sanderson

Remembering Two of Austria's Finest

Austria lost two of its winegrowers this week, Alois Kracher, Jr., 48 and Erich Salomon, 64. Both succumbed to cancer.

For many, Luis Kracher was the face of Austrian wine. Though he and his family specialized in dessert wines from vineyards around Illmitz, on the shores of Lake Neusiedl, Kracher was a passionate and tireless promoter of all Austrian wines. Read more


Harvey Steiman

Food Guy Discovers Wine

A couple of years ago I chatted with Christopher Kimball, the bow-tied host of "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS, and asked him about his interest in wine. I had noted that he had brushed off any particular fascination with wine as he sampled some candidates for cooking wines on camera. Read more


James Suckling

2005 Bordeaux and Fort Knox

I had dinner last night at what might be considered a Fort Knox of old Bordeaux, the wine merchants of Mahler-Besse in city of Bordeaux. The small firm has become the torchbearer for fine old bottles from the region. If an old bottle of Bordeaux has the Mahler-Besse strip label on it, you can be assured that it has been kept in perfect condition in its cellar and, more than likely, it was bought from the château, shipped to its cellar, and never moved again until being sold. Read more


Bruce Sanderson

A Barolo Icon

Last Thursday I visited with Giacomo Conterno of Podere Aldo Conterno, located in the hamlet of Bussia Soprana, just outside Montforte d’Alba.

It was there I got a geology lesson in the landscape of the Langhe. The ridges of the Langhe were formed during the Miocene epoch of the Tertiary period, about 15 million to 7 million years ago. Read more


James Laube

Is There a Way to Measure (and Beat) the Heat?

The jury is still out on whether there are ways to determine whether a wine bottle has been exposed to excessive heat somewhere between leaving the winery and its final destination, be in a wine shop or your home.

In a letter to the magazine in the Dec. Read more


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