Kirk Peterson and Marisa Finetti are an unlikely duo. He’s a native Nevadan. She was born in Tokyo. But together the award-winning writing partners share things they hold dear to their hearts… and stomachs. You’ve seen his work in VegasSeven and The Tasting Panel as well as guest appearances on FOX 5. And hers as the Pulse editor at DAVID and numerous other publications, including Decanter. They have taken readers from kombucha tastings to Michelin-starred restaurants to the tortonian soils of Barolo. In their column, TasteBuds, (originally published in VEGASSEVEN.com) they devour dishes and demystify drinks.
: by Kirk Peterson and Marisa Finetti : Great wine is art that must be destroyed to be enjoyed. It is an anachronism, a vestige of another time and another way of living. Vines are fussed and fawned over, cajoled and supplicated to give up their fruit for wine to then be locked away from the world, aging and changing and developing at a rate entirely its own. It presents an opportunity to taste the labors of people long gone,…
Written by Marisa Finetti & Kirk Peterson After the once-glorious, now Tupperware’d holiday dinner leftovers are banished to the fridge for the night, it seems only right to give them the attention they deserve when they inevitably re-emerge the next day. Reheated Thanksgiving dinner plate. You kept declining the offer to “make you a plate,” but they wouldn’t let you leave without it. Now, you’re famished and suddenly that congealed mess of browns, greens and smattering of reds actually look…
Written by Kirk Peterson and Marisa Finetti Overshadowed by popular—even famous—A-list neighbors, certain grape varieties can fall to the background, even approach extinction. The celebrated versatility and hardiness of well-recognized grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay have also severely diminished diversity, both in the vineyard and in our wine glasses. But in the last half century, rare and indigenous grape varieties are being revived by passionate winemakers and conservationists who believe in their quality and potential, encouraging adventurous…
Award-winning duo Kirk Peterson and Marisa Finetti are an unlikely match, but they share a love of food and drink. In their column, TasteBuds, (originally published in VEGASSEVEN.com) they devour dishes and demystify drinks. Aside from knowing that having a day job would be more helpful in paying the bills, being a wine writer can be a beautiful thing. And if you visit Napa Valley, like Marisa Finetti and I recently did during the Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood…
TasteBUDs and award-winning duo Kirk Peterson and Marisa Finetti are an unlikely match, but they share a love of food and drink. In their new column, TasteBuds, they devour dishes and demystify drinks. This column originally appeared in VEGAS SEVEN magazine. The honeymoon is decidedly over: American consumption of canned tuna is at an all-time low. What was once the most popular seafood—not to mention staple—of the American diet between 1950 to 2000 has all but disappeared from the collective consciousness…
Written by Marisa Finetti and Kirk Peterson. Originally published in DAVID magazine. Awarded best non-staff writer(s), Nevada Press Association The lights are extinguished. The room now dark. The only glimmer of light comes through the floor-to-ceiling window panes facing Las Vegas Boulevard, twenty-three floors below. The lowest lumens are enough to keep us from knocking over the wine glasses, enough to find our fork. But that’s about it. There’s no color, only shades of grey. Dinner tonight appears like a…
Originally published in VEGAS SEVEN By Marisa Finetti & Kirk Peterson (Updated in 2019) The huge, ungainly bird that has become the de facto centerpiece around which the entire Thanksgiving feast is built gives us a feeling of authenticity, as we imagine that America’s settlers might have chomped on a crispy turkey leg in November 1621. But the “first Thanksgiving” meal was far different from our modern holiday offerings. While the starring meats included deer, ducks and geese, cranberry sauce…
It is a known fact that a good, complex sparkling wine undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle under controlled conditions, such as a dark underground cellar. Not the case for this bubbly. Named for its origins, Bisson “Abissi” is actually aged in the deep-sea abyss, nearly 200 feet down, off the coastal town of Portofino, Italy. Ligurian winemaker Pierluigi Lugano, who makes Italian spumante in the classic Champagne method, lacked adequate cellar space to age his wine. So, his creative…
