WhenWhen I saw the pastel pink can of Recess sitting on the counter of a cafe in Southampton’s Parrish Art Museum, tucked between the blood orange Sanpellegrino, lime LaCroix, and a plain old plastic bottle of water, I was surprised: It was the first time I’d seen the brand outside of New York City’s fancier […]
You can easily figure out a bar manager’s secret passion. All you have to do is take a close look at the bottles behind his or her bar. No matter how diverse the selection, there is almost always a collection of spirits that are a bit out of place. Perhaps, it’s an oddly robust group […]
THE HISTORY OF WINE A 40 SECOND ANIMATED Cick here to Watch wine spread to six of the planet’s seven continents — over the course of 6,000 years — in 40 seconds! How Wine Colonized The World The story of wine is deeply intertwined with the story of all of recorded human history. Follow our timeline […]
Like many in the hospitality industry, German sommelier Martin Riese aims to ensure each and every one of his guests experiences ideal pairings during their meal. Only Riese is just as concerned with pairing water as he is with wine. “In a restaurant, food is like your leading actor,” the 41-year-old sommelier says. Just as […]
Soil, not grapes, is the latest must-know when choosing a wine,” Bloomberg has proclaimed. Meanwhile, wine writer Alice Feiring has published a book which helps drinkers choose their tipple by “looking at the source: the ground in which it grows”. And there are now restaurants with wine lists organised not by grape, wine style or […]
The wine world has faced an ongoing debate over whether wine bottled with a cork is better than twist-off bottles and other non-cork packaging. On one side, you have the cork industry (a surprisingly vocal group) as well as plenty of traditionalists who truly believe cork is a key component to the wine experience. On […]
When we look back at Prohibition, we might be tempted to glorify the era from 1920 to 1933 as one of glitz, excess, and freewheeling fun in the face of an unnecessary law. But the origins behind the 18th amendment and the repercussions of its enforcement touch issues as far-ranging as racism, the war on drugs, […]
Non-vintage wine is an odd concept. If wine is made through annual cycles, culminating in an autumn harvest, it always has a vintage, right? Not in Champagne, where at least 75 percent of the production is labeled “NV,” or non-vintage. So how old is the juice in your Champagne bottle? Most of the time, there’s […]
Laboratory analyses can’t identify anything special about the water Hangar One Vodka Distillery collects from Bay Area fog to produce its limited edition Fog Point Vodka. But head distiller Caley Shoemaker can. She says it’s the taste of San Francisco. At the height of summer, when inland temperatures soar above 90 degrees, San Francisco is […]
A series of undulating mounds sinks into the grass, organic edges echoing the surrounding topography — a subterranean lair camouflaged to the specifications of a Bond villain. Inside, beyond the entranceway, a cavernous atrium beckons your neck to tilt back toward the rafters, to spot the lofted ceiling dimpled with 2,500 separate sections of curved […]