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Current topics, themes, musings and travel notes

For love of Champagne

In the hands of great producers it’s like no other bubbles

Gaia Gaja and Alberto Aiello Graci in Idda Carricante vineyards

A Gaja on Etna

What are Gaja-Graci up to on Etna’s less travelled southern slope?

Conversation with Anselme Seloss

Getting deep with Anselme

Part one of my conversation with grower-champagne pioneer Anselme Selosse

Bolgheri dinner

As-good-as-it-gets Tuscany

Dinner for 1,200 and 100 wines under the cypresses. Can anything else compare?

Toscani in cellar with examples of his photo portraits from former career

A rebel in off-the-beaten Tuscany

And more cool places you’ve probably never heard of

Edoardo Ventimiglia in their "San Lorenzo" vineyard of Cilegiolo

Tuscany’s great summer red

Add this to my list of chillable rosso

How deep can sake get?

On a trip to Kyoto, discovering the secrets of the “water”

Robert Camuto with Luigi Tecce

A feast for the ages

With Luigi Tecce for his annual June bacchanalia

Wine after Google

This is what happens when a prominent tech exec meets a Sonoma wine Italo-phile

Russian wine importer Anatoly Karneev

Why Vino Keeps on Truckin’ to Russia

European “sanctions” allow a big loophole for wine

chef Nicolas Durif of L’Hysope in western France

The Dark Side of the Rose

How I’m learning to love rosé again

Arbe Garbe-Enrico Bertoz standing in Catie's Corner Vineyard

Enrico’s California Dream

Fed by the Blues, Dylan and Grunge — a Friuli native in New World wine

Nicola Biasi in his vinyeard

Not the same old grapes

What’s the future of wine look like?

Etna Third Wave

The beat goes on with another volcanic generation

Salvatore Geraci

Faro-out Sicilian wines

Etna’s little cousin needs some love too

Alessandro Salvano of "Drink Wine Not Labels" in Italy's Piedmont

Want to REALLY cultivate young wine drinkers

How about shaking up the wine establishment with new blood?

How Cooperation might actually work in Italy!

Okay so this revolutionary idea took root in the German speaking Alto Adige, but it could work elsewhere

Emanuela Flore of Bentu Luna in Sardinia

“Chateauneuf du Pape of the Poor”

In the heart of Sardinia, an intriguing wine and dynamic winemaker

Alessandro Falvo in Masseria Li Veli's winery

Are you Susu?

The return of Susumaniello and other innovations liven up sleepy Puglia’s wine scene

Allegra and Galardi wines

The return of a great Southern Italian red

After years of struggle and renewal, Galardi is back

At a recent Timorasso tasting Bisso Atassanov right and Colli Tortonesi pres, Gian Paolo Repetto left and tasting hist Diego Sorba center

How’d this Piedmontese white grape get to Southern Ukraine’s front?

Timorasso has gone from near extinction to a hot somm secret. Now it’s leaking out to the world in some disparate places.

Jonathan Sack of Clos Ste Magdeleine in his Vermentino vineyard

Don’t call it Ver----------!

French Vermentino is having a deserved boom. Too bad they’ve got to call it something else.

Brunello Cucinelli overlooking vineyard

Philosophy and beauty. (And wine too)

Inside Brunello Cucinelli’s ultra-boutique red wine

Matteo and Simone of Benedetti La Villa

Lunch with Bacchus! (Sort of)

A pair of Valpo vintners pairs wine (and food) with unearthed spectacular Roman mosaics

Carlo Mondavi and Giovanna Bagnasco at their Sori della Sorba vineyard

A Mondavi’s Italian Dream

Carlo Mondavi and wife Giovanna launch a boutique winery in their Piemontese “heaven”

Calvarino's 50th anniversary tasting Dario Pieropan wine educator Filippo Bartolotta MW Gabriele Gorelli, Andrea Pieropan

Fifty Years of Superb Soave

Pieropan’s Calvarino should be one of the coolest whites you’re drinking

Steve Matthiasson

California’s real Alt- wine scene

We expect California to think different. Same with its winemakers

California grocer Darrell Corti

Super Darrell

How the Sacramento grocer developed his global influence and following

Tegan Passalacqua (left) with Morgan Twain-Peterson in the 19th-century Nervo vineyard south of Geyserville

CA’s Old Vineyard Heroes

Promoting the wildly varied vines of pre-Prohibition days

Renato De Bartoli

Sicily’s “Unfinished Poem”

A return to Sicily’s Marsala and Az. Marco De Bartoli

Prince of a guy

A solitary life and compelling wines in NW Sicily

Tessari Sisters

Q: Do you know Suavia?

You should!

giuseppe vaira

Alt. Barolo anyone?

A winemaking journey through time and bubbles

A Verona salumeria window

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Romeo, Juliet and Valpolicella

Running the Light Red

Grignolino is a food-friendly Piedmont red coming back into appreciation

Listen up!

South of Somewhere comes to audible

The Viking’s last chapter in Sicily

Peter Vinding-Diers should be richer and more famous.

Urban Holiday Wine Stress

Do you suffer from U.H.W.S.? Take heart.

Meaningful Prosecco?

A new generation from Northern Italy returns the popular fizz to its roots

Nobility, Crime and a Great Little Pizza Wine

On Campania’s endangered monster vines

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