Copyright 2011 The New York Sun Mon, 15 Aug 2011 01:55:34 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Wine :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/wine admin@nysun.net (Seth Lipsky) webmaster@nysun.com en-us David Cohen http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/sin-city-goes-tea-total/87415/ Fri, 1 Jul 2011 12:39:01 EST Readers of The New York Sun can be forgiven for assuming that a lead story here on a tea convention in Las Vegas must be Tea Party-related. “Did Sarah Palin play the slots?” you might be wondering. But for once, tea actually means camellia sinensis. While grass-roots conservatives claim ideological descent from revolutionaries dressed as Mohawks who deposited 342 chests of precious China tea into Boston Bay in 1773, the World Tea Expo, now in its ninth year, is devoted to people who really do... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/bridging-the-gap-between-summer-and-fall-wines/85975/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If San Pellegrino water (with a twist of lime) was wine, I would have been in deep rehab during the waning summer days of late August. Summer is the time when I'm more eager to slice open a perfect Long Island tomato, or husk a just-picked ear of Hudson Valley corn, than to reach for a corkscrew. But here's an essential fact about wine: Like wardrobes, this liquid has its own seasons. It would be as out-of-kilter to pour a fleshy, alcoholic Chateauneuf-du-Pape or a wham-bang Australian Syrah in... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/staking-out-brooklyn-turf-for-a-winery/83735/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The drab ex-factory building on Dobbins Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is an unlikely command post for a bold, one-woman foray into urban winemaking. But that's where, in a small second-floor office with a single ivy-covered window, ex-engineer Alie Shaper is advancing on her goal of creating a full-scale urban winery in her home borough. It's grandly called Brooklyn Oenology, and its first releases of white and red wines can already be found at a range of local shops, including Blanc et Rouge... ROBERT SIMONSON http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/from-mexico-to-india-the-wine-way/82424/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Leo Barrera, the wine director at Tabla, Danny Meyer's temple to Indian cuisine, was born into the hospitality business. His family owned hotels first in Acapulco, Mexico, where he was born, and then in Cancun. Growing up, he was a south-of-the-border version of Eloise. "Until my teenage years, I resided in hotels," he said. He was not, however, born into a world where wine held great sway. "We don't really drink wines," he said of his native Mexico. "We have a small wine industry in Baja. But... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/nectar-wine-bar-brings-downtown-vibe-to-harlem/81479/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST In the beginning, there was only Harlem Vintage. Nestled into a new-wave apartment building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, it opened four years ago and was a pioneering wine shop in an area where buying wine or alcohol usually meant pushing your money through a hole in bulletproof glass. But the cash register at Harlem Vintage, far from being protected, sits openly on a low counter, whose transparent top is inset with an intricate pattern of oak leaves. More important, what gets rung up here... HENRY SAMUEL http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/french-willing-to-try-screw-caps/81481/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST PARIS — The familiar sound of corks popping may soon be consigned to history as French wines start dropping the traditional cork for the screw cap. While New World wines have been sealed with screw caps for years — with up to 90% of New Zealand wines and 60% of Australian bottles using them — the French have been far more reluctant to change their ways. But according to one wine expert, two of the world's top names — Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy, whose bottles can sell for tens of... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/products-for-the-perfectpicnic/80174/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST As a child, my formative picnic experience took place on a grassy meadow overlooking the Seine in the French countryside, where my vacationing family had just spread out lunch. Suddenly, a grizzled man appeared. "You're on private property," he growled. "Leave here at once." But then, surveying our beckoning feast, his face softened. "Well, first enjoy your lunch — and then leave immediately," he said. Trust a Frenchman to prioritize the importance of a picnic. Of course, prepping for the... CHARLOTTE COWLES http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/the-lowdown-on-wine-delivery-to-the-hamptons/80185/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Like many New Yorkers, the city's top wine stores have devised a method for dealing with the dog days of summer: Pack up and ship out to someplace cool, breezy, and quiet. Many wine proprietors offer summer shipping discounts to Fire Island and the Hamptons, targeting their beach-loving customers. Most of the city's largest wine stores boast Web sites that allow customers to browse and order from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices. For proprietors to waive shipping fees, a minimum... ROBERT SIMONSON http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/a-local-push-for-iberian-juice/79212/ Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST 'The Italians do it," Ron Miller of Solera, the Spanish restaurant on East 53rd Street, said. "The French do it. Why not us?" Do what? Use their wine list as an expression of national pride and culinary purity, that's what. At Babbo, you'll be looking in vain for a wine not produced on the Italian boot. The list at Balthazar has a thick Gallic accent. Such oenophilic exclusivity is common in Manhattan eateries that focus on French or Italian cuisine. For some of the city's Spanish restaurants... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/pink-sips/76763/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Like linen suits and Panama hats, rosé wines come into season over the Memorial Day weekend. Their straightforward duties have always been to be prettily tinted, well-chilled, and zingy. That said, increasing interest in rosés has begotten what Stephen Bitterolf, wine director of Crush Wine Company (crushwineco.com), calls a "creative rosé class" — sippers that go beyond "delicate simple fruits and easygoing balance." Crush recently held its third annual "War of the Rosés" taste-off, and the... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/refreshing-pours/76762/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST It says something about wine — and not something flattering, either — that one of the most praiseworthy words is "serious." In order to get respect (or at least a high price), solemnity is required. You never hear about a Barolo compared to, say, a Toots Thielemans harmonica solo. Happily, though, this rule is tossed aside with the arrival of summer. Now, the watchword is "refreshing." Like Mr. Thielemans's mastery of the chromatic harmonica, a refreshing wine can also be — dare I say it?... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/food-blogger-takes-on-the-biggest-name-in-wine/76006/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST In her quirky and endearing new memoir, "The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization" (Harcourt, $23), wine writer Alice Feiring sharpens up the debate over the palate and power of Robert Parker, the world's reigning wine critic. Nobody has done more than Mr. Parker, through his writings and ratings, to raise American wine consciousness. But Ms. Feiring, who writes a Web log at alicefeiring.com, argues (as did the 2005 documentary "Mondovino") that Mr. Parker's... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wines-to-be-treasured/75585/ Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST The literature of wine is ripe with descriptions (and barely concealed avarice) about wine buying. Here's Thomas Jefferson in 1787, acquisitive and even geeky in his wine pursuit, writing to a friend: "I cannot deny myself the pleasure of asking you to participate of a parcel of wine ... It is of the vineyard of Obrion [Château Haut-Brion], one of the four established as the very best, and it is of the vintage of 1784, the only very fine one since the year 1779." Even in the early 20th century... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/matzo-balls-meet-their-match/74772/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Last week, I made my annual spring pilgrimage to an unlikely Mecca in a remote corner of the city: Skyview Wine & Spirits, hidden away in a dreary shopping strip just south of where the northwest Bronx melds into Yonkers. Offering more than 450 kosher for Passover selections from a dozen countries, this is, perhaps, the country's most complete kosher wine shop. Skyview is also an epicenter of early Passover energy. In the month before the holiday, owner Gary Wartels told me, his shop will send... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/market-timed-wine/74067/ Wed, 2 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Feeling squeezed by the falling stock market? Wine prices, which loped along in sync with flush times, may now feel like a stretch. The Bar of the Four Seasons Hotel, for example, charges $32 for a flute of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Champagne. But thankfully for anyone whose wallet is suddenly feeling thinner, there are top-tier dining venues in the city where wine pricing is considerate. At Jean-Georges (1 Central Park West, between 60th and 61st streets, 212-299-3900), for example, there's... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/little-known-west-coast-vintages-head-east/73186/ Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST Although it can't be proved, it's nevertheless safe to say that when it comes to wine, New Yorkers are Europhiles. And why not? Europe still offers the most interesting and varied wines. As a result, New York has always looked more east to Europe than west to California, even today. Partly it's a matter of availability. Many of California's most interesting wines are what might be called small-hatch offerings: The local trout snaps them up. Nevertheless, even if New Yorkers aren't quite as... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/where-wine-is-a-one-woman-show/72347/ Wed, 5 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST A neighborhood wine shop is like an old-fashioned apothecary — or so it struck me while hanging out one recent afternoon at Frankly Wines, a new and tiny shop in TriBeCa. Customers come into both kinds of establishments looking for savvy counsel. The difference, of course, is that at a wine shop, they're seeking prescriptions to bring pleasure and well-being, not relief from pain or illness. One such seeker at this shop was a stylish young woman who said to proprietor Christy Frank, "My... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/say-bonjour-to-the-free-market/71571/ Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST "How has France, the carefree country of joie-de-vivre, come to this?" plaintively asked Denis Saverot, the editor in chief of France's most important wine magazine, La Revue du vin de France. In a recent column in these pages, I wrote about how a French court ruled that a newspaper article that recommended French Champagnes was "intended to promote sales of alcoholic beverages in exercising a psychological effect on the reader that incited him or her to buy alcohol." As a result, it could be... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/black-is-back-but-at-a-high-price/71249/ Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST During a recent lunch at Eleven Madison Park, I sipped, from my Bordeaux-style glass, a liquid that glowed with the deep amber tints of a great old Sauternes. But that glow emanated from a great old single-malt Scotch whisky — 42 years old, to be exact. As I tilted my glass toward the midday sunlight, glints of pure black flashed amidst the amber. That darkness, atypical in a whisky, had been noticed as it aged in a barrel at the Bowmore distillery on the Scottish island of Islay. That's how it... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/bank-vault-turned-wine-cellar/70430/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST It's hard to imagine that upwards of $30 million in treasure could reside deep within the grim, fortress-like American Bank Note Company building that hulks over the east side of the Bruckner Expressway in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx. No, that treasure isn't a trove of the international currency, which, along with stock and bond certificates and stamps, was once printed here. It's wine: more than 20,000 cases of the rarest and priciest glories of the vinous world, residing in a... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/folly-that-is-france/70044/ Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST In this most political of seasons, it's comforting to know that the politics of other nations can be even nuttier than our own. Proof comes from France, where two recent court decisions out of Paris this month have demonstrated the zealousness of France's insistence on curtailing the promotion of alcohol, which inevitably means wine in this most wine-centric of countries. In one case, the magnificently named Tribunal de Grande Instance (the French equivalent of a small claims court) ruled that... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/at-adour-ducasse-courts-wine-lovers/69596/ Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Late last week, workers were still touching up Adour, Alain Ducasse's new restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel, launching on January 28. With his galaxy of Michelin stars in Europe, as well as a previous — perhaps too fussy — three-star incarnation at Essex House that was never embraced by New Yorkers, Mr. Ducasse is all about haute food, of course. Wine has played only a supporting role. But upon entering Adour's richly appointed, yet lighthearted space (the former home of Lespinasse), designed... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/impressing-the-sommelier/69176/ Wed, 9 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the great imbibers of modern British literature and television, London barrister Horace Rumpole is, alas, no connoisseur. As author John Mortimer frequently notes, Rumpole's preferred tipple is an inexpensive plonk called Château Thames Embankment, which Rumpole consumes in copious quantities at his preferred boîte, Pommeroy's Wine Bar. Nevertheless, Rumpole is not without a certain sensibility. "Just sometimes, wasn't life like the law?" he once mused. "It shouldn't only be lived, but... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/where-the-brooklyn-bridge-is-on-the-label/68785/ Wed, 2 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Inside every sommelier, a would-be winemaker is itching to break free. He yearns to prove that he can not only recommend the right wine, but have a hand in crafting it. The past president of the Sommelier Society of America, Darrin Siegfried, demonstrates it can be done — having released a trio of intriguing wines under the Brooklyn Wine Company label. The wines have been selling briskly at Red White & Bubbly, an easygoing Park Slope wine shop at which Mr. Siegfried is operating partner. Their... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/immediate-pleasure-in-late-bottled-port/68571/ Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Although I have a vested interest in noting this, wine writing may as well be written in disappearing ink. The wine scribblers of yesteryear are abandoned like so many empty bottles set out for the recycling bin. Mind you, this is not because some wine writers can't swing a deft word. One of America's finest wine writers — who's still happily alive but has long since retired from the field — is Bob Thompson. A man who once wrote, "In certain fussy-eater circles, drinking Gewürztraminer is... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/once-shunned-chilean-wine-comes-of-age/68331/ Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST You could get a stiff neck walking around Santiago, Chile, just from looking up. That's how mesmerizing the first rung of the snowcapped Andes are, towering above the city to the east. Now, as the Southern Hemisphere summer begins, snow-melt from those peaks irrigates the ever expanding vineyards in the plains and valleys north and south of the city. Afternoon breezes, alternately sliding off the Andes and from the cool Pacific coastline, keep temperatures moderate even though the sun blazes... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/holiday-gifts-for-collectors/67951/ Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Those of us in the advice-giving game know what's expected of us for the holiday season. We're supposed to tantalize you with you-gotta-give-it goodies — and you're supposed to clap your hands with delight. We are all exhorted to think that our loved ones will be inconsolable without, say, a jeroboam of Château Lafite-Rothschild 2005 ($6,757.99 at Zachys) or a bottle of Montrachet 2004 from the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. (Even for a rarity such as DRC Montrachet, it pays to shop around... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/oenophiles-holiday-wish-list/67553/ Wed, 5 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Even in Omar Khayyam's day, a dedicated lover of the grape would have welcomed a few extra touches, beyond a loaf of bread and a book of verse, when it came time to share a jug of wine with his beloved. This holiday season, there are peripherals aplenty — as well as some special bottles — to please even the most jaded wine buff on your gift list. Our selection of gifts, priced from under $20 to blowout, ranges from high-tech glassware to hand-blown bottles of 19th-century Madeira. Eisch... ROBERT SIMONSON http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/ambassador-of-israeli-wines/67518/ Wed, 5 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Read the wine list at any high-end restaurant in Manhattan and you'll get a good idea of the wine director's likes and dislikes, and perhaps a hint of what kind of food is being conjured in the kitchen. The wine list at Capsouto Frères, the breezily elegant TriBeCa restaurant, however, could be interpreted as a compact biography of its creator, Jacques Capsouto, who, along with his brothers Albert and Samuel, in 1980 installed the restaurant in a remote, former spice warehouse at the corner of... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wines-odd-couple/66845/ Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST She was from the Upper West Side, a graduate student in French film studies who haunted Parisian libraries by day. He was a Frenchman who tuned accordions. By night the couple, Jenny Lefcourt and François Ecot, hung out with friends at wine bars. "François was feeling cooped up with accordions, and I felt cooped up in the library," Ms. Lefcourt said, sitting across from Mr. Ecot for a breakfast interview recently at Balthazar. The two of them, who were once married but are now just business... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/thanksgiving-day-pours/66415/ Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST Wine lovers are generous sorts and their admirable, even laudatory, instinct is what might be called an evangelical openhandedness. We're so enraptured with the beauty of wine that, like all believers, we lose sight that others, ahem, might be less enthralled. Hence this well-meant (and time-tested) advice: Do not trot out your best wines for the Thanksgiving feast. Save your very best bottles for another occasion. Having gotten this public service announcement out of the way, let's get down to... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/sipping-sauvignon-blanc-at-mealtime/66045/ Wed, 7 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST Do wines that fly high with critics also excel when they land on the table? Not necessarily, as an intrepid New Zealand winemaker demonstrated recently in a risky (for him) experiment in which two dozen wine journalists and sommeliers participated at Per Se. Structured in two phases, the event was intended to show how our perception of wines, when sipped solo, is changed when they meet food. The experiment's sponsor, Steve Smith, of the esteemed Craggy Range Winery, was taking a gamble that his... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/beyond-the-familiar/65577/ Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST In a rare moment of concision, the novelist and critic Henry James observed, "There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise, and the taste for emotions of recognition." Wine writers everywhere know — let's be honest here — that most wine buyers seek the familiar. They have a Jamesian taste for "emotions of recognition." And who can blame anyone for seeking "comfort wines"? When you glance at the wines to follow, your eyes will likely glaze over. The names seem so unfamiliar... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/countering-counterfeit-wines/65159/ Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Many citizens recycle their empty wine bottles in order to be green. But certain shady citizens and sellers recycle because they want that other kind of green that ultra-pricey bottles can bring, industry insiders say. Empty bottles of pricey vintages, obtainable from restaurants specializing in great wine, can make their way to the underbelly of the wine trade, where counterfeiters refill one or more of the bottles, their prestigious labels intact, with inexpensive wine. The bottles would then... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/separating-cost-quality/64706/ Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST The problem with wine today is money. But it's not, as you might be thinking, the nosebleed prices fetched by a variety of famous Bordeaux, Burgundy, and California cabernets. Those wines aren't the problem at all. Rather, the money problem afflicting wine today is that so many wines are astoundingly good, yet the price is disproportionately low for the quality. This begs credulity. How good can a wine be if it's so cheap? Winemakers are aware of this quandary, to their dismay and frustration... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wine-events-uncorked/64261/ Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST The rest of the city kicks into high gear after Labor Day, but the wine crowd waits until October. That's when — along with the first tints of yellow and orange in the Central Park maples — a quickening of interest comes in what we'll drink when the first chill wind blows. Stern and sturdy reds, such as those from the northern Rhône and Napa valleys, which are ignored during the summer doldrums, now beckon, as do cerebral whites such as the best white Burgundies. Now, too, the city is suddenly... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/toasting-louis-pasteur/63868/ Wed, 3 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST ARBOIS, France — The region of Jura is known — if at all — for its green, rolling hills and as a source for the firm, delectable cheese called Comté. But as you drive into Jura, you see official road signs describing Jura as the "Pays de Pasteur," the land of Louis Pasteur. Indeed, Pasteur is why I went to Arbois. It is a town of 3,698 people, nearly all of whom seem dedicated to eating Jura's traditional, rather heavy, and utterly delicious food, and drinking the peculiar, sherry-like dry... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/from-banker-to-wine-connoisseur/63886/ Wed, 3 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Something about Christy Canterbury's polite demeanor made me suspect, at first meeting, that she might be a vegetarian, maybe even a vegan. But the right corner of the business card from her former job with Smith & Wollensky steakhouse appeared to have been chomped off by the incisors of a flesh-eating animal. A vegetarian, she is not. Until last month, Ms. Canterbury, 32, was the national wine director of the nine-city Smith & Wollensky chain. But after the $95 million sale of the chain's... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/simple-answer-to-complex-wine/62923/ Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST VOLNAY, France — Whenever I am asked to recommend a red Burgundy, I issue a gnomic utterance: "Volnay." It hardly suffices. But the fact remains that if you know nothing about Burgundy — which is treacherous, given its prices and variability — you can do no better than to scan a wine list or a retail shelf looking for Volnay. The reason is simple, and that's a word rarely applied to Burgundy: Volnay is unusually small. It counts just 323 residents. Its vineyard area is little bigger, with just... ROBERT SIMONSON http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/new-light-for-a-venerable-shop/62444/ Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST The chairman of Sherry-Lehmann, Michael Aaron, looked through the long, curving window of his new second-floor office onto a stately expanse of Park Avenue. "I know the inside of every single store here — every corner on Park Avenue I looked at," Mr. Aaron, the proprietor of what is arguably the swankiest and most famous wine shop in New York, said. But it was the northeast nook at 59th Street that would become the new home of Mr. Aaron's family business, started in 1934 by his father, Jack, a... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/priced-out-of-bordeaux/62446/ Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST Last year, Bordeaux lovers watched in shock and awe as futures prices of the 2005 vintage soared to record highs. You could have paid $25,000 for a single case of Chateau Petrus 2005 to be delivered in 2008. Or, for that money, you could have taken title to a new Mini Cooper convertible. You might even have a few thousand dollars left over to buy wine that — unlike the Petrus — is currently drinkable. Granted that, in a region rife with imperfect weather, the 2005 Bordeaux vintage was a thing... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/from-an-arid-ancient-land-table-wine/61544/ Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST For motorists climbing the hills to Jerusalem from Israel's coastal plain, the ramshackle Efrat winery at the village of Motza, emblazoned by a large commercial sign, was long the most visible symbol of Israel's wine industry. It was equally a symbol of local decrepitude. Far to the north on the Golan Heights, the brilliant young winery Yarden was proving, beginning in the mid-1980s, that Israel could make world-class table wines. But Efrat went right on making the same sort of coarse and... JOHN LAUERMAN http://www.nysun.com/national/genetics-offers-chance-to-create-new-wine-nuances/61404/ Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST BOSTON — Deciphering the complete genome of the Pinot noir grape, among the first to be cultivated by man, offers the chance to breed new nuances into some of the world's most complex wines, scientists said. Researchers from France and Italy found 13 genes that are responsible for the Pinot noir wine's distinctive flavors, according to a study released Sunday by the journal Nature. Turning them on and off may give vintners the ability to add and subtract key characteristics from their products... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/in-wine-shade/61069/ Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST "Wine is earth's answer to the sun," a 19th-century transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller, wrote. That sounds just about right, especially in late August. Although Fuller was pondering deep thoughts, those of us savoring the summer season know that wine is an ideal answer to the sun — or at least its heat. The wines that follow are ripostes, indeed. They should be served cool, and preferably in the shade. HERE'S THE (SUNNY) DEAL Pinot Bianco "Alto Adige" 2006, Alois Lageder — Italian white wines... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/fresh-tomatoes-aged-wine/61067/ Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST Come August, variety all but disappears from my lunch menu. I'm content to sit at the kitchen counter and eat a freshly made tomato sandwich on a slice of white bread, a ciabatta roll, or a plain bagel. Though easily dismissed as humble, it's a seasonal dish that's as intriguing, in its own way, as autumn's white truffle risotto, although not nearly so expensive. Not just any tomato will do, of course. It has to be a Long Island or Jersey tomato, its color a deep and shimmery orange, fading to... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/teaching-new-york-diners-to-navigate-wine-menus/60569/ Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST Anthony Mazzola was dining at an Italian restaurant in Norwalk, Conn., when Martha Stewart took the adjoining table and ordered a glass of the house white wine. "Could I offer you something better?" the restaurateur — who upped the Upper West Side dining ante as a partner in 'Cesca — asked. Stewart gave up her nondescript house wine for the quaff on Mr. Mazzola's table: an intense, hazelnut-inflected Fiano di Avellino, one of Italy's best white wines. Mr. Mazzola's focus on worthy wine is meant... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/how-to-tell-youre-on-your-hosts-a-list/60100/ Wed, 8 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST This fall, should you be served a bottle of Bordeaux with a bearded St. Peter on the label and vintage date 1982, be sure to say something nice to your host: Three cases of that wine, Chateau Petrus 1982, each sold for a record-busting $72,700 at Aulden Cellars-Sotheby's in New York last May, or more than $6,000 a bottle. An even more generous investment in your dining pleasure would be a pour of the red burgundy Romanée-Conti 1985. A case of that wine sold at NY Wines Christie's, also in May... MATT KRAMER http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/locating-that-hard-to-find-wine-online/60089/ Wed, 8 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The most frequently asked question wine writers everywhere receive (apart from the perennial "How can I get a job like yours?") is: "Where can I find the wines you recommend?" The person who has the answer resides in, of all places, Auckland. "It always bothered me that there was no simple, easy way to find out which wine merchant has which wines," the creator and developer of the Web site Wine-Searcher.com, Martin Brown, 50, said during a recent interview. Although he... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/off-the-e-train-a-vineyard/59606/ Wed, 1 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST At one time, I thought that a subway ride's most unlikely destination was a lonely Rockaway beach where I'd go surfing. That trip took an hour on the A train from Columbus Circle. One day last week, I took the E train (and a city bus) to a destination that is, perhaps, even more surprising than a beach: a young and thriving two-acre vineyard of chardonnay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and cabernet franc. The first vintage of 270 cases of a red wine blend, harvested last year, will be released... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/fast-food-savored-spirits/59107/ Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EST For kitchen-tech nerds, celebrity-chef groupies, and Martha Stewart watchers, the place to be last Friday evening was the modest, pristinely restored, early 19th-century Greek revival home of Ellen Hanson and Richard Perlman on a back street in Sag Harbor, Long Island — or rather, around back, in the couple's unusual wine cellar. It was created out of an ancient cistern, discovered, accidentally, beneath the house. That cellar was where Mr. Perlman was unveiling a residential model of an...