An Old Cork’s Best Friend

Just pulled this fantastic cork from a bottle of 30-year-old Sterling “Diamond Mountain Ranch” Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley). I’m sure it would have crumbled into a zillion pieces if I had tried to take it out with anything other than a Durand. This fantastic, easy-to-use type of corkscrew combines a standard waiter’s corkscrew and an Ah-So. So there’s a worm and prongs. It’s absolutely faultless and works miraculously with old wines. The Durand was founded in 2007 by sommelier Yves Durand to allow one to extract an old or compromised cork in one piece. It’s an indispensable tool for many wine lovers.

The Sherry-producing region of Spain was once under Arabic rule.

Answer: True.

For almost 800 years during the Middle Ages, the region of Jerez (pronounced hare-ETH in Spanish) along the southwestern Andalusian coast was under Arabic rule. The Arabs called sherry Sekeris, although we should note that the region has had many names in its time. The Greeks called it Xera, the Romans, Ceret. Northern Spanish Castilians called it Xérès, and later Xérèz. By the late 1800s, Xérèz had become Jerez. Later, British wine importers corrupted the Spanish pronunciation of the region. After undergoing a series of evolutions, the English name became Sherry.

Chemical Trespassing

The term used when herbicides, insecticides or other chemicals applied to one plot of ground migrate and unwantedly affect another plot of ground. An example can be found in the Willamette Valley of Oregon where… Continue reading

An Old Cork’s Best Friend

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