24 horas en la vida de un enologo
25 de Abril – 12 am Es medianoche. La bodega está mucho más fresca, pero transpiro como un cerdo. Corro por todos lados como un loco, monitoreando los tanques, probando el jugo, tomando temperaturas y rompiendo sombreros. Tengo siete tanques llenos por el momento, y los sombreros (las uvas que se elevan hasta la parte […]
Q&A: Marcelo Pelleriti
Marcelo Pelleriti is an Argentine winemaker and rock fan. He makes his own wine under an eponymous label, and is head winemaker for Bodega Monteviejo in Mendoza as well as Château La Violette and Château Le Gay in Pomerol, France. Posted Thursday, 06-Sep-2012 on Wine-Searcher.com What do you see when you look in the mirror? That I should drink […]
Beyond Chateau Musar… Lebanese wine
Written for Wine-Searcher Lebanese wine has been on the radar for some time, but it’s only recently that the reputation of this ancient viticultural region has evolved beyond Chateau Musar. One of the oldest wine-producing countries in the world, with records traceable to 7000 B.C., Lebanon‘s rich history features the Phoenicians and Romans as well […]
Pinotsaurus: Pinot Noir and Dinosaurs in Neuquen
I looked at the grey stony structure. Almost the same size as my entire body, this was just a single vertebra of an entire spine – just one piece of the enormous puzzle that makes up one of the largest creatures that ever walked the earth – the 90 million year old fossil of an […]
Interview with Laura Catena
Laura Catena is an emergency room doctor in San Francisco. She is also a fourth-generation winemaker from a family credited with revolutionizing Argentinian wine – Bodega Catena Zapata’s flagship label, Nicolás Catena Zapata, was the first wine from Argentina to score a Robert Parker 98+. How did you first fall in love with wine? When my father was […]
Dia del Amigo…
It is one of the busiest days of the year… no, Christmas hasn’t come early, nor has Thanksgiving been adopted by Argentines. This Friday is Friend’s Day. It sounds sweet, soppy and like something taken from an episode of Sesame Street, but this is actually one of the biggest days on the Argentine calendar. When […]
Chainsaws in Uruguay and the new ‘alternative tourism’
A bare-chested 70-year-old man burst into our room, shouting something in Spanish and waving his arms. It was 4am. My boyfriend and I had been asleep: it was our first night couchsurfing in a stranger’s house. His voice boomed around the dark room for a minute and then he slammed the door shut and stormed […]
A look through the drinking glass with Riedel…
Written for The Vines of Mendoza We all know that the temperature a wine is served at can have a huge impact on how it tastes, and also that some wines need longer time to ‘breathe’ than others, but I guess I have never really thought too much about the glass I drink it through. […]
Dispatch from the Frontline
Written for Wine-Searcher.com Lucas tears at the vine stalk; dry leaves crunch, stems crackle and grapes bleed under the force of his hands, but the stalk won’t snap off. The extra effort makes his tired arms shake, his bent legs cramp and another trickle of sweat roll down from his sun cap to the spine […]
Hey Presto! A Winemaker’s Box of Magic Tricks
I guess naively I always thought wine was very simple to make: pick some grapes, let them ferment and hey presto! You have wine. I figured it was probably discovered in some backwater farmland in Ancient Greece sometime when a forgetful farmer left his basket of picked grapes out in the sun too long and […]
