A new Languedoc discovery from the low hills of Gignac comes Domaine L’Hermas, and youthful winemaker Matthieu Torquebrau. He’s made two wines, a 2010 red from Syrah and Mourvedre that is well balanced, deeply knitted ad full on the mouth with black fruit and blueberry tastes. His 2011 white is a blend of Vermentino, Roussanne … Read more
Roussillion wine expert, author and friend Michel Smith has taken a page out of the book of others, and made a stunning all Carignan wine from grapes that come from vineyards that are over 60 years old. His Cotes des Catalanes wine named Puch, is forward and precocious but loaded with violets, black raspberry, sour … Read more
Domaine d’Aupilhac’s Sylvain Fadat is upgrading his winery look along with the ever improving wines. The 2011 Lou Maset red may be his best ever. Having been tasting it the last week almost every day I can only hold my breath for it to arrive in the USA. Syrah, Cinsault, Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre are … Read more
I’m at one of the so called Offs the day before Vinisud begins in Montpellier France tasting wines well before lunch. The most interesting wines are coming not from the Languedoc but from Serbia, Portugal and Italy. Maybe they stand out because they are different, but my palate is telling me that variety is the … Read more
I love Cinsault and regardless if the grapes are from Provence, the Rhone or the Languedoc, I constantly find that wines made from the obscure grape are always dreamy. I first fell in love with the grape when Bonny Doon's winemaker, Randall Grahm first came out with a DEWN wine made 100 percent from the … Read more
Since I'm heading to Portugal I was happy to read about yet another leading airport group's operations for WiFi being taken over by Boingo, a former client whom we worked with up through their IPO period. While Boingo users previously could roam onto the Portugal Telecom run hotspots, now it standardizes things and means that … Read more
LightSquared my be down for the count. While not a Joe Frazier or Larry Holmes style KO, it's looking more and more that the dream of multi-billionare hedge fund leader Phillip Falcone, may be going the way of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter or or worse, Sonny Liston. Yesterday the FCC said "no way" and now the … Read more
Image via Wikipedia Last night over dinner Sylvain Fadat, the winemaker and proprietor of Domaine d'Aupilhac surprised me with two new whites he's just finsihed making, just in time for next week's Vinisud in Lattes, France. Sylvain popped the corks on his 2010 Vin De Pays Mont Baudile blanc and his 2011 Les Cocalieres Blanc. … Read more
Woke up in Paris after a great Saturday doing not much of anything that was really work beyond email and some thinking about the next few weeks ahead. I shared some thought on my Paris Saturday over on WineScene. My morning started with news that rocked my world. One in a great way, the other … Read more
Started my day at Willi's Wine Bar and saw pal Mark Williamson before he ran off to deal with his quarterly tax and accounting matters. We caught up and agreed to find one another in a week or so down in Montpellier during ViniSud. While at Willi's I met his new bar/wine tenders. Becky and … Read more
