Soave and Sophisticated

Patricia Guy
Feature Stories
3 min read
“When people visit Soave Classico for the first time they always say things like ‘I didn’t realize how beautiful it is here’,” said winery owner Meri Tessari, as we took the ten minute drive up the hill from the Medieval walled town of Soave to the tiny hamlet of Fittá,

Wondering What To Drink? Ask a Winemaker

David White
Features
2 min read
Imagine if BMW’s design chief admitted that Ford produces some of his favorite cars. Or if the CEO of Coca-Cola confessed that every now and then, he craves a Pepsi. Pure fantasy, of course. But with wine, such admissions happen daily. And now, a website has launched -- WinemakersRecommend.com --

3 Things You Cannot Miss in Western Sicily

Elisabetta Tosi
Features
4 min read
Sicily is a cornucopia of beauty, art, history, landscape, delightful food and wine. It's almost impossible to list all of them in a few lines. However, there are at least three things you absolutely cannot miss, if you are going to travel in Western Sicily, between Marsala and Menfi. I discovered

What I Learned Inside the CIA

Meg Houston Maker
Features
11 min read
No, not that CIA—the other one, in Hyde Park, New York: the Culinary Institute of America. I’m an experienced cook. I’ve done my 10,000 hours in the kitchen, maybe even 10,000 hours chopping onions. I know about mise en place. I know how to mince a shallot. I have decent

The Accidental Leader of the Fork’s Organic Pack

Diana Combs
Feature Stories
2 min read
There are now eighteen vineyards with sustainable practices in Long Island, and Barbara Shinn is leader of the pack. Shinn is a modest woman, thin and deeply tanned, with dirty blonde, shoulder length hair. She probably never intended to be a groundbreaker (pun intended) for Long Island vineyard farming.  In

Cognac chills out

Michelle Locke
Features
4 min read
Producers of the French digestif are blending in with the cocktail crowd Flanked by barrels of gently slumbering brandy, Jerome Royer is talking about cognac — his passion and his business — with all the gallant gestures and mustachioed enthusiasm of a Frenchman straight out of Central Casting. But what he has