Love wine? Love graphic design? Here are five awesome designs we stumbled across while drinking wine and surfing the web. The above image comes from Grey Jay’s design for a sherry-focused drinks list at NYC’s The Beagle. Any resto with this much oxidative juice has to be good! The above…
Green Wine
The concept of Hipster is like pornography, you can’t define it but you know it when you see it. Recently Lettie Teague of the Wall Street Journal wrote that, “While the Urban Dictionary defines “hipster” according to geographic location, hairstyle and attire, there is no indication as to a preference in wine.” This sent Jezebel—the feminist-snark-fueled, and yes, hipsterized blog—to conclude that, “F*ck yes there is such a thing as hipster wine, if for no reason other than that wine snobs and hipsters were bound at some point to intermingle their cultural snobbishness.” Since I work in the wine-biz, have...
When Equipo PJs arrived in Lyon last March it was challenging enough to walk down the street, let alone to try and land a plane. In retrospect, though, blustery March weather is the ideal mood setting atmosphere for visiting the largest city in the Rhône-Alpes region, one that is known for its heavy, warming cuisine. The food from here is the caloric cliché of everything that is rich and wonderful about French cooking: Gras-double(tripe with onions and parsley), Boudin aux Pommes (blood sausage and apples), bavette (an especially sinewy skirt steak), blanquette de veau (veal stew), museau de boeuf (don’t...
If you are traveling to the Jura to drink wine you will surely stumble across the towns of Arbois and Poligny. They are both tiny, but thanks to the genius of French civic planning they feel like miniature versions of Paris or, perhaps more accurately, like one of those “secret” neighborhoods in Paris, such as the banks of the Canal St. Martin. Either way, they are great and have great little shops, especially for the thirsty. Two can’t-miss spots are Epicurea in Poligny and Les Jardins de St. Vincent in Arbois. The first is also a cavisteand a cremier, words that imply producer oriented products as opposed to just “products.” Here you won’t find...
It’s July in France and that means one thing, Le Grand Boucle, or as the rest of us call it, the Tour de France. But despite 21 days of agony over 3,430.5 kilometers, there’s just not a whole lot of wine regions along the route. That’s probably better for the riders who already have to suffer enough as it is and don’t need to be taunted by vineyards whose fruits they can not enjoy until the off season. But while most of this year’s route stays clear of Bordeaux and Burgundy, it does, at stage 15, cut right through the...
The moment I step foot in Nicolas Joly’s vineyard in Savennières, I realize all my thinking about the man and about biodynamics has been wrong. I had spent too much time investigating natural winemaking techniques; too much time pondering the possibility that the moon might have an effect on how wine tastes; and far too much time considering what makes a wine “good” or “bad”. I had missed the point. All I needed to do was smell the air. You hear a lot about how wine evokes place—a notion usually reserved for wine as a mnemonic device, one that brings...
What’s with all this talk of “funky” wine? Funky like George Clinton? Funky like a Parisian cheese shop? Well both…sort of. For a “funky” primer click here for my previous post, or check out my top ten list below to get an idea of what wine dorks drink when they want to get their funk on. But before digging in, keep in mind that I’m using the word funky in the loosest sense. Sure, some of these wines show straight up funk—barnyard, truffles, hay—but for the most part, I mean that these wines are special. Not special in the American...
Top 10 Reasons You Should Drink Natural Wine 1. You like adventure: Because they don’t use sulfur, factory yeasts, or try in any way to control the fermentation, Natural Wines are unstable. Secondary fermentations, color shifts, and wild aromas are all part of the package. With seat belt laws, mandatory motorcycle helmets, and warning labels on pillow cases, perhaps it’s time to bring back danger; at least for our taste buds. 2. You want to turn back the clock to a time when wine was just wine: There are hundreds of products winemakers are allowed to use to make wine...
10 things you probably didn’t know about Biodynamics: Biodynamics is a philosophy as well as an agricultural system, but unlike organic or sustainable practices, it’s got a whole heap of, well, let’s just say eccentric details. Check out our list below for 10 things you probably didn’t know about biodynamic winemaking. For a primer on the world of Bio-D click here, or check out the movement’s most vocal and charismatic figure, Nicolas Joly. 1. No metal in the wine cellar: According to Biodynamics, too much metal in a cellar creates “electrical pollution” by causing electro-magnetic vibrations that are harmful to...
Sipping Sustainability This past year, I took a really great wine trek to California’s Central Coast with a few other journalists to learn about a new-ish (well, 15 years in the making but only really recently adapted) green growing effort there called SIP—Sustainability in Practice. To be perfectly honest, I really had on my Dubious Face when I got off the plane in the tiny airport in San Luis Obispo – there’s so much green-washing in the world, it can make a cynic out of just about anybody. Plus, that word sustainability—I was starting to view it in the same...
Green Wines? Green Wines: The expression causes as much confusion as it does arguments. Not too long ago a green wine would mean a wine that was too young to drink, or possessing vegetal characteristics. Nowadays, people think of green wine the same way they think of green food or green products; basically products that don’t hurt the earth, and at best, improve it. But as we all know, that’s a pretty vague concept and everyone seems to have their own specific idea about the best way to go green. So how is a consumer supposed to navigate through the...
The concept of Hipster is like pornography, you can’t define it but you know it when you see it. Recently Lettie Teague of the Wall Street Journal wrote that, “While the Urban Dictionary defines “hipster” according to geographic location, hairstyle and attire, there is no indication as to a preference…
When Equipo PJs arrived in Lyon last March it was challenging enough to walk down the street, let alone to try and land a plane. In retrospect, though, blustery March weather is the ideal mood setting atmosphere for visiting the largest city in the Rhône-Alpes region, one that is known…
If you are traveling to the Jura to drink wine you will surely stumble across the towns of Arbois and Poligny. They are both tiny, but thanks to the genius of French civic planning they feel like miniature versions of Paris or, perhaps more accurately, like one of those “secret” neighborhoods in Paris, such as…
This year’s Action Against Hunger Grand Tasting was a tremendous success. Once again PJ Wine was thrilled to be the principal sponsor for this event, which does so much to generate funds for a noble charity and is, of course, and excuse to taste so many amazing wines. And taste…
