Dulce

Sweet. Spain has less of a reputation for making top-quality sweet wines than France, Italy, or Germany, although several styles of Sherry, Spain’s extraordinary FORTIFIED wine, can be sweet.

A wine that tastes of “gout de terroir” usually tastes earthy.

Answer: False.

I love the French term gout de terroir, but like so many French expressions, it exits some place halfway between the literal and the romantic. Gout de terroir (literally taste of the terroir) is the distinctive flavor a wine acquires from the combination of a given grape variety grown in a specific place. Over time, for example, winemakers notice that a certain variety (say, cabernet sauvignon), from a certain plot of ground always has the same discernable flavors--pepperyness, blueberryness, or whatever. That’s gout de terroir. So for some wines the gout de terroir may indeed be earthy; but not for others.

Viva Les Veuves!

The history of Champagne is liberally sprinkled with the success of larger-than-life women, many of them widows. Unlike many women in the early 19th century, widows (veuve, in French) enjoyed the independence necessary to run… Continue reading

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