My favorite wines of 2014

Becky Sue Epstein
Feature Stories
2 min read
I can’t tell you how many hundreds of wines I’ve tasted this year. Wait, that sounds snobby. In truth, I’m privileged to be able to sample and evaluate wines all around the world – and sometimes I even get to drink them. Evaluating wines in a region often leads to

Good Spirits for 2015

Gary Thomas
Features
2 min read
Back in my bartending days (many, many years ago) we rarely ventured outside of anything more complicated than a martini or a Manhattan, and we hated anyone asking for a blender drink. (“Sorry, the blender is broken. “)   But now we are in the grip of the craft cocktail craze.

In praise of the “mouth rinse”

W. Blake Gray
Features
3 min read
Kermit Lynch once described a wine he imported as "a mouth rinse." He meant it as praise. I saw this a decade ago and have never forgotten it. Nobody speaks well of simplicity in wine. It doesn't matter which side of the power vs. elegance debate you're on. Power fans

The trials of being organic

Simon J Woolf
Feature Stories
4 min read
Last week, the New Zealand Organic Focus Project gave a public presentation on three medium to large NZ wineries who participated in a side-by-side organic versus conventional agriculture trial. The aim was to demonstrate the relative ease or difficulty of conversion to organic viticulture. Palate Press's own Erika Szymanski reported