terroir Archives | Palate Press

7 min read

When Michel Chapoutier mentioned in 2011 that he was considering planting a Chasselas vineyard in the UK, some may have thought this was the ultimate insult to “le vin Anglais” - the famously neutral variety is increasingly ostracized in French vineyards, and is so disliked that even when it appears Read More

Is Coffee the New Wine? Embracing Coffee’s “Third Wave”

Evan Dawson

Features

6 min read

How’s this for a tasting note? “Cherry, roasted cashew, baked apple, and chocolate.” Or this: “Toasted nuts, caramel, milk chocolate and tobacco.” The ﬁrst is difﬁcult to place. The second sounds like a modern Bordeaux with about ten or ﬁfteen years of age. But we’re not talking about wine. We’re Read More

Comté and the terroir of cheese

Mary Cressler

Features

9 min read

I’d only been in the region a few hours. I was tired and jetlagged after twenty hours of travel and a nine-hour time difference. But our guide at the museum, our first stop, decided to wake us all up by giving us a playful quiz – an activity to awaken our Read More

134 year-old California wine research: Conclusions pending

Erika Szymanski

Features

6 min read

In 1880, Dr. Eugene Hilgard asked the California state legislature for $3000 to start a wine research program at the University of California, and he got it. His first start-up – the “California Agricultural Experiment Station,” now transmogrified into the University of California Davis's massive agricultural extension program – had Read More

Malbec comeback: A Cahors producer looks to the past for innovation

Mary Cressler

Features

5 min read

Is it fair to compare a grape produced in the old world, with centuries of history, to one made in the New World, thousands of miles away? Or is it better to appreciate them for what they are – unique in their own ways? Is it fair to compare Malbecs Read More

Terroir is for Weirdos, and other Place Lessons from Beer

Erika Szymanski

Features

7 min read

Beer is playing catch-up. Craft brews have recently begun earning the kind of respect, devotion, bottles, and prices heretofore reserved for grape-derived beverages: the so-called “wine-ification of beer.” Respect and devotion leads to sensory analysis, and – in our oenophilic culture – sensory analysis leads to terroir. And terroir leads Read More

The Contradictory Consultant : A Look at Clark Smith and His Postmodern Winemaking

Remy Charest

Features

6 min read

Clark Smith is a tough act to follow. By this, I don’t mean that it’s hard to step on a stage after he has danced his ideas across it, but rather that it’s often hard to understand what he’s getting at. In the last few months, I heard Clark Smith Read More

Playing with Yeast Diversity: Not Quite Science

Erika Szymanski

Features

7 min read

I feel as though I need to whisper this, but I think that yeast might be trendy. The furor (both supportive and critical) over natural wine is bleeding over into an interest in the “wild” yeasts that contribute to their distinction, and whether or not they're really “wild.” Meanwhile, a Read More

How Valais put the charm in Chasselas

Is Coffee the New Wine? Embracing Coffee’s “Third Wave”

Comté and the terroir of cheese

134 year-old California wine research: Conclusions pending

Malbec comeback: A Cahors producer looks to the past for innovation

Terroir is for Weirdos, and other Place Lessons from Beer

The Contradictory Consultant : A Look at Clark Smith and His Postmodern Winemaking

Playing with Yeast Diversity: Not Quite Science

2018 Notturno Drei Donà Romagna DOC Predappio Sangiovese

2019 Jordan Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County

2018 Ghost of a Chance Wines “Gangster of Love” Red, Sierra Foothills

2020 One Flock Sauvignon Blanc

2020 One Flock Red Wine, California