The Chronicle
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13 results across all types
- news
The Trouble with Gewürztraminer
The trouble with Tribles, as Star Trek fans all know, is that everyone falls in love with them at first sight. The trouble with Gewürztraminer is very different! >>><< Sue and I were fortunate to attend a big dinner at Cantina Tramin‘s strikingly beautiful winery a few years ago. Although I can’t really remember what […]
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Three Things We Learned about Sicilian Wine
Sue and I recently returned from a trip to Sicily. We had a great time and learned a lot about the region and its history, the people and their culture, and, of course, the wines. Here are a couple of things we want to share with you about our experience. Sicily vs Italy Sicily is […]
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Wine & Tourism in Sicily: Benanti Winery Shows the Way
Sue and I have just returned from a trip to Sicily. We went as tourists — Sicily is one of the few regions of Italy we haven’t visited until now — but you can be sure that wine was always on our minds. Sicily’s Tourism Boom We were not alone. Tourism is booming in Sicily, […]
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Maculan & Tenuta Biserno: Italian Wine Beyond the Stereotypes
Breganze and Bibbona. Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. These are not necessarily the first things that come to mind when you think about wines from Italy. But, to paraphrase Walt Whitman, Italian wine is large; it contains multitudes. Embrace stereotypes at your peril. Sue and I were fortunate to be invited to taste the wines […]
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Small is Beautiful: Bulichella’s Distinctive Tuscan Coast Wines
This is not an easy time to be an Italian winemaker. There is climate change to deal with, of course, and the global fall in wine (and alcohol in general) consumption. Add to this the dramatic 28 percent decline in shipments of Italian wine to the U.S. market that has been reported recently by the […]
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Rediscovering the Diversity of Tuscany’s Wines with San Felice
Sometimes it takes a special event to nudge you to take another look at a familiar winery or wine region. That’s what recently happened to us with the wines of Tuscany in general and San Felice in particular. A Tuscan Wine Giro Our old friend Peter and new friend Gina are newlyweds planning their first […]
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Italian Wine Innovators: Three Case Studies
It is useful to step back for a minute and appreciate some of the ways that the wine industry is evolving under the influence of innovative producers. Sometimes innovation is so obvious you can’t miss it. That was the case for us, for example, when Sue and I participated in the big SIMEI wine technology […]
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Existential Threat? Anatomy of Italy’s Wine Crisis
It is cold comfort for U.S. winegrowers, producers, distributors, and retailers, but they are not alone in suffering a cascade of wine market woes. Recent reports from Italy, for example, paint an increasingly clear picture of a major wine-producing country in crisis. UIV Analysis Focuses on Exports The Unione Italiana Vini, which has more than […]
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Searching for Italy’s Wines: A Stanley Tucci Flashback
The first season of Stanley Tucci’s new travel and food series, “Tucci in Italy,” is running this summer on the National Geographic network. Click on the image above to view the series trailer. Sue and I can’t get enough of Italy, so we’ve been tuning in regularly for this just as we did a few […]
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Tenuta Licinia: In Praise of Philosophers & their Wines
If you flip to the back of my 2017 book Around the World in Eighty Wines, you’ll find a list of the wines from my global adventures. I didn’t want to just list them alphabetically or sort by price or critic rating. Organizing them by country of origin didn’t seem right, either. So I invented […]
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Cru Cerrati and Ruchè: Piemonte Wine’s Past, Present, & Future
What do you remember about the hit 1985 film “Back to the Future”? Doc? Marty? The “Chuck Berry” scene? How could you forget that time-traveling DeLorean sports car? I don’t know if anyone thinks much about the film’s deeper messages anymore, but the idea that the future is somehow buried in the past is a […]
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From Sharecroppers to Superstars: Family Wineries in Italy
The arc of the Italian wine industry bends towards quality in the 21st century, something that has become increasingly clear to Sue and me as we have visited many of Italy’s important wine regions in recent years. Quality has not always been Italian wine’s guiding star, however. Piero Antinori’s 2014 book The Hills of Chianti […]
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Second Thoughts on Pinot Grigio?
Sue and I find that we are having second thoughts about Pinot Grigio. And that’s a good thing. I am not quite sure where and when it began, but we must have had a series of disappointing Pinot Grigio (PG) experiences. Maybe we were at too many receptions where PG was offered as the white […]