“In the Willamette Valley, we are no longer simply trying to make great wine. We are now just as concerned with representation of place. With pinot noir, a single place (a vineyard) reveals extremely precise… Continue reading
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look… Continue reading
“A grade on an exam or relating to a student’s performance in a subject isn’t everything; it is just part of the story. A test grade tells you nothing of the student’s personality, style, or… Continue reading
“It’s hard to talk about flavor. Tasting something is such a direct neural jolt; words will always seem clumsy and vague. ‘Spicy’ does not begin to express the riot of electrical fires sparking through your… Continue reading
“For a long time Sherry was a victim of changing tastes, with fortified wines, like sweet wines, having fallen out of style around the time Churchill was born. The category has come back in vogue… Continue reading
“Every season is likeable . . . red wine and white; company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions—a walk,… Continue reading
“Climate change is happening. The start date of each vintage moves forward by a week per decade. Burgundy won’t be making Pinot Noir in 20 years as it will be too hot; they’ll be making… Continue reading
“On one particular occasion, André [Tchelistcheff] and I were visiting Sancerre [in France’s Loire Valley], specifically Didier Dagueneau. But before we arrived at the winery, André told us to stop by the road. He got… Continue reading
“We entered the wine industry when there were no wine magazines, no wine critics, no 100-point scale—all 23 of us vintners in the Napa Valley in the 1960s. What we learned, we learned from the… Continue reading
“The efforts to demystify and simplify [wine] never ring true because they ignore the fact that wine by its nature is mystifying and complicated. These qualities can be embraced and celebrated without suggesting that they… Continue reading
