Spirit Reviews - Palate Press

1 min read

Drink up, and move on. Have you ever fallen in love with someone’s beauty and vitality, enjoyed them to the hilt all evening – only to find the attraction had dissipated by morning? That’s the experience I had with this Pinot Noir by Gary Farrell Winery, wonderful as an aperitif;

Penelope Bourbon: How to Create Your Own American Whiskey

Becky Sue Epstein

Feature Profiles

3 min read

Why does someone start a bourbon brand named Penelope Bourbon? Are you sitting at home in New Jersey, thrilled that you and your wife are going to finally have a baby, talking with your childhood best friend, and the subject of bourbon just happens to come up? Perhaps. And if

How Did the “Tokay” Grape Disappear?

Becky Sue Epstein

Feature Stories

2 min read

Twenty years ago, there were three different, fairly well-known European grapes commonly referred to as “tokay” (with various spellings); today there is only one. These three grapes came from three separate countries: Italy, France and Hungary. With the launch of the European Union in the mid-1990s, grape names have been

An Unexpected Italian White Wine: Friulano

Becky Sue Epstein

Feature Stories

2 min read

From the organic Aquila del Torre Winery in the extreme northeastern region of Italy Imagine a wine that is layered and deep, echoing the soil and the hillside terroir where it is grown. And this is a white wine – perhaps not exactly what you might be expecting, since more

2019 Los Vascos Cromas Carmenère Gran Reserva

Becky Sue Epstein

Features

1 min read

You’re going to need a bigger glass. Not just because you’ll want to drink more of this wine, but because it shows much better in a glass with a large bowl. Though the carmenère grape in this Chilean wine originally came from Bordeaux (as does the parent wine company, Barons