Recent content by Clarke B.

I missed you last weekend, too, ass face. Are you still holding a grudge over the corked Barthod?

Interesting that the Alpine grape Humagne came up, as I had a revelatory pairing of fish soup and Torrette--a blend of native Alpine red varities--the other night.

I have very little experience--like, one bottle once during a drunken marathon--with Bouchard, and my comment stemmed from the discourse here, rather than on an accurate handle on the grower's style. Your comment re: Selosse makes sense, and it seems like he'd work better in my analogy. It's...

Who cares about "conceptual coherence" if the results smack of competently executed but somewhat forced experimentalism? This question applies to both Radiohead and Bouchard. Not that I don't like them, but Radiohead are our generation's Pink Floyd. Just as certain bands have always and will...

Brian, I wouldn't necessarily categorize the "traditional processes" you mention as "masking" vintage characteristics. I think of those sorts of things as ways to work with what the vintage presents you, accentuating its pluses and de-emphasizing its negatives, but without fundamentally...

Don't give up on the NYC restaurant scene... Just stop looking and eating in Manhattan so much!

This little Zen koan comes at you from at least ten different overlapping, at times contradictory, unintentionally hilarious, angles: "My Faux Chablis has needed de-alc five years out of six, because we seldom have the rain they get in France to dilute sugar to a good balance." How can one...

If I were forced to do such a silly thing as decide my favorite Beaujolais, I think it would have to be Foillard Cote du Py. Although I'd be curious to see how the wine ages, the sheer exuberance and rompy deliciousness of a young version is not something I'd want to jeopardize with cellaring.

Endless fertile ground for discussion here... The most spoofulated phenomenon in music recording is surely the current penchant for ridiculous levels of compression, which makes the music sound simultaneously deafening and monotonous, as all the natural dynamics of the recording are ironed out...

I second the love for many of these producers, from both Chablis and Muscadet, but no Muscadet can scratch the Chablis itch for me--and vice-versa. I do really like the Chablis of Jean-Claude Bessin, whose wines I got to know in Virginia, but he's through Kysela--hence, pretty much impossible...

A bottle of '85 Tourtine I had a few weeks ago was like a big, warm hug. Totally life-affirming.