In my latest article for MyNameIsBarbera.com, I make a case for legitimately comparing Barbera d’Asti to… Michael Jackson. Yeah, that Michael Jackson. The King of Pop Michael Jackson. My penchant for stretching cross-discipline compares to incredibly thin levels aside (I wonder if the Barbera d’Asti folks knew what they were getting into when they picked…
Category: Italian Wine
Land Of The Almost Lost (Terre del Principe Recent Releases)
Nestled in the sandy clay soils between the Taburno and Matese mountain ranges in Italy’s Campania region, at about 200 meters above sea level, sit a relatively small number thirty year old lost souls. Well, almost lost souls, anyway. Specifically, the “esoteric” grape varieties Pallagrello Bianco, Pallagrello Nero and Casavecchia, rescued in part as a…
Puzzle Pieces (Exploring The Quality Pyramid At MyNameIsBarbera.com)
One of the more endearingly maddening things about European wine classifications is that they try to lump location, in aspects that are increasingly specific, and “quality,” in ways that are often nebulous. Over at MyNameIsBarbera.com, I take this dichotomy head-on, in my dime-store-philosphical way (not yet trademarked, but it might as well be at this…
The Terror Of Writing About Terroir (February Monferrato Moves)
As a wine-scribe-type-guy, I absolutely despise writing about terroir. If there is another term (aside from “optimal ripeness“) that is more flippantly overused in the wine business than terroir, I am unaware of it. In fact, its overuse – and the fear that it engenders – is so ingrained in me that I am incapable…