Vinography: A Wine BlogWine and food adventures in San Francisco and around the worldTakasago Ginga Shizuku "Divine Droplets" Junmai Daiginjo, Hokkaido Prefecture- June 12, 2008 It is deep winter. The snows lay heavy on the mountains of northern Japan. Cedar trees hang sparkling, dusted with ice, over frozen rivers and streams. The air is crisp, even crystalline in its stillness, and the white landscape yields only the slightest muffled sounds. In the heart of this winter landscape a strange sight emerges every winter. A huge igloo, constructed entirely of ice, filled with rotund canvas bags. From these somewhat alien shapes that hang suspended from the ceiling at..http://www.vinography.com/archives/2008/06/takasago_ginga_shizuku_divine.html Asahi Shuzo Dassai Niwari Sanbu "Otterfest 23" Junmai Daiginjo, Yamaguchi Prefecture- June 11, 2008 There is no real reason to attempt a comparison between sake and wine. Each are their own universe and deserve to be evaluated on their own terms. Leaving aside for a moment the radically different methods of their making, sake and wine are different enough that comparisons tend to introduce more confusion than clarity to any particular effort to make a point. Nonetheless, I continue to draw parallels between wine and sake if only to explain sake in terms that most wine lovers can understand. .http://www.vinography.com/archives/2008/06/asahi_shuzo_dassai_niwari_sanb.html Pinot Days Festival and Tasting: June 26-29, San Francisco- June 10, 2008 It's hard to believe there was once a time that San Francisco had no major public wine tasting focused on Pinot Noir. I've only been blogging about wine for the last four and a half years, but when I started, no such festival existed. We had a Zinfandel Festival, a tasting for small family winemakers, a tasting for Rhone varietals, a cabernet tasting, and more, but not until 2005 did San Francisco get a festival dedicated to what has been called the "heartbreak grape." Now in it's fourth...http://www.vinography.com/archives/2008/06/pinot_days_festival_and_tastin.html Ethiopian Wine: A New Frontier in Africa- June 9, 2008 I'm a sucker for pioneers. Especially those that strike out into the wilderness to try making great wine where no one has tried before. This is why I was positively tickled when I learned about people making wine in Thailand a few of years ago. My latest source of delight in this regard is Ethiopia, which frankly is a much more likely locale for winemaking than Thailand. Thanks to the famine in the 80's, most people's mental picture of Ethiopia looks like this: Photo by Calips96 But...http://www.vinography.com/archives/2008/06/ethiopian_wine_a_new_frontier.html France Makes Progress Towards Rational Wine Laws- June 8, 2008 I can't tell you how happy it makes me to write a piece acknowledging progress in France towards a rational approach to laws concerning wine production and marketing. It seems like every few months for the last couple of years, I have found myself with my head in my hands, bemoaning another setback for the French wine industry at the hands of ignorant, stubborn, and backwards politicians. I've written so many articles criticizing French policies that some of you have even written to complain..http://www.vinography.com/archives/2008/06/france_makes_progress_towards.html |