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Number of pounds of pasta per person Americans eat each year according to a recent status report by the International Pasta Organization. Sound like a lot? Not to Italians. In Italy, pasta consumption is just shy of 55 pounds per person per year. The U.S.-based National Pasta Association reports that trending pasta recipes include pasta with chicken and salmon. (Ciao meatballs).

What grape variety grown in Chile was, for many years, thought to be merlot?

A. Cabernet Sauvignon

B. Malbec

C. Carmenère

D. Cabernet Franc

Indigenous to Bordeaux, carmenère was brought to Chile in the late 1800s where inexplicably, it began to be made into wine called merlot. It wasn’t until the DNA fingerprinting of grapevines was pioneered in the 1990s that Chile’s “merlot” was discovered to be carmenère. Carmenère is now virtually extinct in Bordeaux, but is thriving in Chile where it can produce fascinating, soft, plush wines redolent of green tobacco, coffee, and leather.

“It’s like Audrey Hepburn in the perfect little black dress. It’s not just a black dress—it’s a perfectly-lined black dress, with the perfect strand of pearls, the wrap, the whole thing. It’s not fancy, it’s not overdone. In winemaking, I do that. I don’t make blousy wines. I don’t make wines that are heavily out front. I make wines that you need to pay attention to.”

—Eileen Crane, CEO and Chief Winemaker at Domaine Carneros who retired after 33 years, on her winemaking style.

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