The first thing I need to tell you is that I’m deeply grateful to ViniPortugal for having invited me to Lisbon to judge in the 2013 Wines of Portugal Challenge (the first time they’ve opened it up to international judging), and for the hospitality that they showed to me while I was there. I have…
Category: wine review
Toilet Frogs And Whale Tails (Alto De La Ballena Recent Releases)
One could go their entire blogging life and never be fortunate enough to use the phrase “toilet frog.” And yet… here I am, able to use the term from personal experience. I need a moment to revel in this, people. Please, indulge me a moment, for I have met them, in person. T-o-i-l-e-t f-r-o-g-s…. As…
What’s Young Is Old Again (Irony In Uruguay, And Narbona’s Recent Releases)
In Carmelo, about three hours drive from the bustling city of Montevideo in Uruguay, along the river that divides the country from Argentina, there exists the picturesque hamlet of Narbona, the kind of place with such overwhelming quantities of irony that it causes story-relating fingers like mine to nearly freeze at the keyboard. Where to…
Rocks, (PhD) Papers, Capybara (Bouza Winery Recent Releases, Uruguay)
Bouza Winery is small even by Uruguay’s petite wine production standards. 25 hectares of vineyards spread out between two plantings, in the Melilla and Las Violetas regions near Montevideo, yielding about 120 thousand bottles a year. But you wouldn’t know it tasting their wines, which are bold, modernly stylized (okay, and in a few cases…