The Gourmez

I’m moving to California. There is no set “when” yet, but if all goes well after listing our house next week, it will be sometime in August.  There is no set “where” yet, but if all goes well with Ben’s employment options, it will be in the Bay Area, with LA as a second choice. [...]

Bar Lusconi 117B East Main Street Downtown Durham Website Weds – Sat, 5 pm – 2 am Hey folks, I posted this review of Bar Lusconi over at Carpe Durham last week, and I didn’t get the chance to report here until now! So here you go: Bar Lusconi is a downtown beer and wine [...]

Ipsus Passito di Pantelleria Dessert Wine Marsala, Italy This dessert wine is made with Muscat grapes, which are often used to produce sweet wines and fortified wines. Its color is light amber with rose tinges, and its nose is nectarine with subtle floral qualities including that rose again. It tastes wonderful. Certainly sweet, as expected [...]

2011 Green Fin Cabernet Sauvignon California In the tradition of Trader Joe’s wine, the exact region in California these grapes hail from is murky, but that’s all part of the mystery, right? This Cab smells of berry and nothing else. Thin- to medium-bodied, barely there sweet anise and leather notes come out right away then [...]

Red Diamond Shiraz 2009 Washington State This Shiraz has the most interesting nose I’ve smelled in a while. It’s full of leather and juicy blackberry. The wine itself is much thinner than expected for a Shiraz, but it’s nicely matured. Blackberry swoops up then is replaced with whipped cream and spices. Pink peppercorn, a hint [...]

Broadbent Vinho Verde Portugal I love Vinho Verde. Wine made from its or Torrontes’s grapes convinced me I’d given white wines too hard of a time when they became popular in the last few years. So I’m always happy to try another bottle of the stuff. The Broadbent Vinho Verde has a delicious nose of [...]

Seigneurs de Bergerac 2011 Bergerac Sec Dordogne Valley, France This wine was part of a value pack from my wine shop up the street. It’s pale yellow. The nose is a well-blended mix of flowers and minerals. Mildly sweet, and tannins play against that sweetness for a nicely balanced body. The lime is perhaps too [...]

Primal Roots 2010 Red Blend Acampo, California I love blends. They make me happier than wines primarily made of one grape. Together, the blend is smoother, more drinkable, although I assume an argument can be made that they lose character along the way. That may be the case with the Primal Roots 2010 Red Blend. [...]

The Sustainable Classroom: Wine and Cheese The trio of organizers for my final session at the Sustainable Classroom, a day of intensive discussion and tasting of sustainable foods at TerraVITA 2012, knew their crowd. They knew we were seasoned foodies; the concept of pairing cheese and wine was not revolutionary to us, though it will [...]

The Sustainable Classroom #3: The Cultivation and Culinary Possibilities of Figs  For my third session at the Sustainable Classroom as part of my bloggers’ free pass to TerraVITA 2012, I chose to take a class on figs and wine pairings. My reasoning was simple. I adore figs. I adore wine. I often think of figs [...]