Tag Archives: biodynamic

Cheers to Fall Wine Review: 2012 Hermitage by M Chapoutier Monier de la Sizeranne

It is Fall, and the season beckons you to watch me elucidate about this most fabulous Syrah:

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MULTIPLYING SUSTAINABILITY: DAY WINES AND DAY CAMP COOPERATIVE

JancisRobinson.com recently finished their summer 2020 Wine Writing Competition (WWC20) and published 75 entries on Sustainability Heroes in the wine industry. I was honored to have all three of my submissions published. Although, I did not win the final, the below article on Day Wines and Day Camp Cooperative made it. Continue reading

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Hiyu Wine Farm: Oregon’s Sustainable Utopia in the Columbia Gorge

JancisRobinson.com recently finished their summer 2020 Wine Writing Competition (WWC20) and published 75 entries on Sustainability Heroes in the wine industry. I was honored to have all three of my submissions published. Although, I did not win the final, one made it onto the shortlist. For your re-reading pleasure, I will re-publish each over the following days.

If sustainability needs mascots, Nate Ready and China Tresemer would fit perfectly. In floppy hats, with Nate’s druidical beard and China’s proud grin, they grow the most complete whole farm vineyard on Oregon’s northern fringe: the Columbia Gorge. Their minimal approach at Hiyu Wine Farm makes Biodynamics look conventional. Here, native plants grow higher than vines, animals seem to do more work than people, and you almost forget this is viticulture. Nate admits that they are “trying to nudge the system as close as possible to a wild system, and it isn’t a wild system, but we try to make agriculture look a little more like nature”.[1]Any visit confirms this. Continue reading

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Thirsty Thursday: Château La Roque, Pic Saint Loup, Languedoc, France 2010

Thursday: it is neither Wednesday nor Friday.

For the employed, work still binds your thoughts. A distant weekend glows but faintly. Internet cat porn provides a fleeting, albeit empty distraction

Such a lost weekday deserves a decent drink: something real but not demanding.

Enter Château La Roque. Winter still grips us, so my palate races to the Mediterranean: specifically Pic Saint Loup in the Languedoc:

Vines surround its eponymous mowhawk-mountain, Pic Sanit-Loup. The warm sea and cool plateau inland traps this region in a sort of goldilockian limbo. Continue reading

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Holiday Wine Geek Gift: COS, Pithos, Nero d’Avola Frappato, Sicilia IGT, Italy 2010

Stumped on what to get your wine geek this holiday? Unsure how to shock and awe a wine-centric holiday party. Wayward Wine has the answer.

Fly their wine glasses to Italy’s southernmost corner: Vittoria (represented by the massive, pink, plastic, lawn flamingo…of course).

The town of Vittoria is one of Sicily’s youngest. Founded in 1607. But this trading post has been gang-rushed by Sicans, Sikels, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Arabs, Normans, French Angevins, Spaniards, Chiaramontes, Sicilians, Savoys, Austrians, and most recently, Italians. Even the Americans conquered it, replete with a resplendent donkey-carted-procession:

But through these countless colonizers, wine has made Vittoria tick. Continue reading

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