An Outlier While neighboring France began to gradually open more space for women in its professional winegrowing circles, Italy’s opening remained slower. Constraints by traditional structures through the Catholic Church and rigid family hierarchies with deeply rooted cultural patriarchy meant that, at the time, women were largely behind the scenes. In industries like wine, women in lead roles were not...[ read more ]
Located in Liguria’s Colli di Luni region, Maneterra was founded by Claudio Felisso, a native of the area. After training at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie in Montpellier and gaining vineyard and winery experience in Toscana, Romagna, Piemonte, France, and Chile, he returned to create his own project on the hills of Castelnuovo, Fosdinovo, and Fravizzola in the Val di...[ read more ]
When first introduced to a new grower’s wines, we try to find reasons not to import them because we already can’t help ourselves by not overextending with our current roster. In fact, after two rounds of samples of Castello di Castellengo, we went to the cantina for our first visit to confirm whether or not we were in. Along for...[ read more ]
Coming soon...
Located sixty kilometers from the Adriatic Sea in the Verdicchio di Matelica DOC, Borgo Paglianetto is both in the heart of Italy’s Marche as well as in an area most famous for mountain-and-sea influenced, salty, minerally Verdicchio. Inside the unique north-to-south-running, land-locked Alta Valle dell' Esino, Borgo Paglianetto began as a collaboration of five friends in 2008. They have nearly...[ read more ]
The Bigger Picture by Ted Vance Rioja, Spain We have a new member on the team in the form of a high-flying piece of technological plastic with intricate circuitry and a nice camera. The most difficult part of the drone is realizing long after I’ve left a location only to see how poorly I may have filmed, and by then,...[ read more ]
If you have interest in Italian wines, particularly those from Tuscany, Riecine could be a worthwhile consideration for you. The style of the wines at Riecine wear many faces, from the elegant and lifted Chianti Classico, the more savory and deep Chianti Classico Riserva, the unapologetically top-heavy red fruited, full-throttle Sangiovese, La Gioia, and the most dainty and Burgundian of...[ read more ]
It may have taken all year for us to finally arrive at a silver lining of gratitude for a unique year that continues to serve up one piece of humble pie after another. Finally some good news arrived that we can all be thankful for—the arrival of a potential vaccine, as well as… a few other things… So many in the wine...[ read more ]
My wife, Andrea, and I live in northern Portugal now, but we spent the previous year in Salerno, an ancient southern Italian port city sandwiched between the Amalfi and Cilento coasts. We just received a few care packages from some good friends over there; you know, the usual provisions, like Amalfi Coast lemons, anchovies and colatura from Acqua Pazza,...[ read more ]
We know our business is not going to save the world. But we’d like to help brighten as many moments as we can. We plan to continue offering you deals over the next months with our overstocked goodies that were originally destined for our restaurant customers. We can’t keep them forever and our growers always have another pile of wines...[ read more ]
What is loess? That off-white, fine-grain soil known as loess finds its way into many wine regions in the vicinity of the Alps. Loess in Western Europe is largely a result of Alpine glaciers grinding rocks into a fine-grained crystalline powder, often rich in calcium. It’s light and easily kicked up by the wind. Once blown in and deposited, its...[ read more ]
What is dry-farming? We asked our friend, Ryan Stirm @stirmwineco, a viticulturalist, soil scientist and winemaker. “Dry-farming is the practice of farming without the use of supplemental irrigation— relying completely on the rainfall (and subterranean water) that occurs on the plot of land being farmed. Drip irrigation as we know it was invented and developed in Israel in the 1960's...[ read more ]
The two prevailing names for zucchini suggest a split personality. The Italian name, which we obviously employ in the U.S. too, Zucchini, is a sort of silly word that sounds a bit like a clown who performs at kids’ birthday parties. (Oh, yes, there it is: http://www.zucchinibrothers.com/ ) On the other hand, the name favored by the French and English,...[ read more ]
Both humble and exotic, the artichoke is a transporting food—to pick one up and turn it in our hands is to look back through time at one of the oldest cultivated foods with culinary roots back at least to the Greeks. Given the color and the ruggedness of the plant, it’s easy to imagine them growing in the scraggly soils...[ read more ]
Years ago, one freezing February in Friuli I pulled into the town of Gorizia, near the Slovenian border. I was bundled up tightly, as the temperature hovered around forty degrees, which made me all the more surprised to find the town square packed with people, eating, drinking, and making merry. I approached, curious to find out what could be causing...[ read more ]
