Vintage: Old-is-New-Again Vineyard Practices

We’re talking about vintage as it pertains to something classic and enduring from the past, like the days of pre-industrial agriculture.  In these fast-paced times,  where technology is transforming the wine world, from augmented reality labels to AI-crafted wine blends, some things do remain – thank goodness. Contemporary innovations are paving the path, but the wine industry’s future is also grounded in the soil with vineyard practices based on age-old holistic farming techniques.  Conversations around “revolutionary” vineyard practices point to…

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A bounty of deliciousness in Reggio Emilia

The tri-colored Italian flag was established here. It’s the birthplace of a renowned educational philosophy, and the city where the young Kobe Bryant started dribbling the basketball. Reggio, as locals call it, is also the home of Luciano Pavarotti’s first operatic performance and the headquarters of Italy’s Max Mara fashion house. Amid its cobbled streets dotted with historical churches, theatres, galleries, and monuments, Reggio Emilia is already culturally and fashionably rich. And then there’s food and wine. Situated perfectly between…

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Lake fish, beans, and Umbria’s other red wine

Even a seasoned traveler may skirt past the shores of Lake Trasimeno to discover the better-known wine regions of Umbria, like Montefalco (home to the Sagrantino grape) and Orvieto (known for their historic white blends). However, the land around Lake Trasimeno, located in the northwest pocket of the “green heart of Italy,” offers charming discoveries of a grape and wine curiously called Gamay del Trasimeno, a bean saved from extinction, and a bounty of lake fish prepared like game. As…

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Biondi-Santi: The wonderment and beauty of wine

The long and picturesque row of towering trees that line the driveway at Biondi-Santi’s Tenuta Greppo estate is a welcome unlike any other. The slow approach down the drive provides time to ponder this moment, this month (June 2023), and to imagine what it must be like for wine producers of Montalcino. Certainly, it was atypical. Moderately warm, the summer was constantly mingling with the threat of rainfall that ranged from light showers to lightning strikes and torrential downpours. Now…

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Podere Le Ripi: Guardians of the land

“We’re more focused on the richness of life,” says Sebastian Nasello, CEO and winemaker at Podere Le Ripi. Situated at the end of a long and gravely dirt road near the village of Castenuovo dell’Abate just south of Montalcino, Podere Le Ripi is more than a biodynamic winery and farm; it’s its own ecosystem. A thick row of lavender hosts dancing winged pollinators – bumble bees, honey bees and paper-white butterflies. Swallows fly about in response to the impending storm.…

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Tiny wineries of great quality make a splash at Vinitaly

In Verona, Italy, the largest international exposition featuring 4,000 companies from 30 countries is magnificently daunting. And as in the case of David and Goliath, smaller producers in the battle of the giants can result in a win with wines that are just as amazing and sometimes even more storied than the larger ones. Made possible at Vinitaly for the second year, a focused and organized effort to showcase these tiny (micro) wineries of high-quality (mega) wines was found in…

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The next chapter: Wines of Sicily

Are we still in Sicily? Indeed, we weren’t in Palermo anymore. The beautiful and distinctively gritty capital city from two days ago boasted the impressive and massive neoclassical Teatro Massimo opera house, the largest collection of mummified remains in Europe, and a cathedral designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Palermo was also a bit slippery underfoot and yet olfactorily stimulating – at the fish markets – where we sat at L’Acerba for shrimp crudo, chunks of fried cod, and…

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Life with Mateja Gravner & friends

Mateja Gravner met us for dinner at the cozy Ristorante Laite in the postage-stamp-sized mountain village of Sappada, Italy. I have written about Gravner in the past and was always intrigued by the mystery surrounding this biodynamic wine producer located on the far edge of Oslavia, just a stone’s throw from Slovenia. But today was the first time I would meet Mateja in person. Her disposition is kind and casual but gracefully confident. Her wholesome beauty is carried by her…

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Holiday Leftovers with the Right Wine Pairing

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…

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Sunday Sip Trip: Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir

Apple Park sits low in the distance – a ring tossed in a sea of technology. But unplug. How fortunate for the three million people of Silicon Valley to be so near to wine country. Those familiar deep green hills to the west are so close but so untraveled, and continue to be one of the most over-looked wine appellations of the world. Those who are aware of Santa Cruz Mountain wines have fully engaged palates. They know and appreciate…

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