Sublime

language used by New World wine:

Cabernet sauvignon’s aromas and flavors are well known and easy to indentify: blackberry, black currant, cassis, mint, cedar, graphite, licorice, leather, green tobacco, cigar, black plums, dark chocolate, sandalwood, and so on.

This set Vial off, as Sophie guessed it would, on a verbal tour of Provençal vineyards. “There have been vines here,” he began, “since 600 b.c., when the Phocians founded Marseille.” And from there, interrupted only by the arrival of champagne and menus, he took Sophie from Cassis to Bandol and beyond, going east to Palette and west to Bellet, with

“The name of the grape, so the historians tell us, comes from the Italian moscato. That is to say, musk. Now, musk is very highly thought of among deer.” Vial permitted himself a roguish twitch of the eyebrows. “It is the scent with which they—how shall I put it?—issue an invitation to deer of the opposite sex. Indeed, musk is also used as an ingre

(Wine Spectator’s readership is about 2.5 million,

But the crown jewels of the collection—and the source, understandably, of great pride—were the five hundred or so bottles of premier cru claret from Bordeaux. Not only were they first-growth; they were also from the great vintages. The ’53 Lafite Rothschild, the ’61 Latour, the ’83 Margaux, the ’82 Figeac, the ’70 Pétrus—these were stored in a cell

The tradition started, oddly enough, with a hospital. In 1443, Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, founded the Hospices de Beaune and endowed the foundation with vineyards to provide it with income. Other charitable Burgundians followed his example, and today, more than five hundred years later, the hospital costs are sti

The persistence of a wine on your palate, even after you’ve swallowed, is called its length or finish. The better the wine, the longer the length.