M. Senegor

In a constantly evolving wine world that I have been studying for nearly twenty years, the bottle you see in this pictures exemplifies a constant. Let me pose you a puzzle: what's wrong with this label?The wine, which we tasted blind during our weekly Friday night wine group, was a bit dark - sign of premature aging for its vintage (2011)- with a tropical fruit nose and entry, followed by a sweet mid palate and a stemmy, off-balance finish. It was a screw cap bottle, typical of some U.S. and many Australian/New Zealand wines, atypical of France. My only comment[...]

When it comes to Italy and wine, most think of the two famous Northern appellations of Tuscany, with its Sangiovese grape, and Piedmont, with its various versions of Nebiollo, and maybe Pinot Grigio.In fact all regions of Italy produce different wines and have their own unique profiles. Today I will focus on the Southernmost part of Italy for an overview, more details to come in future blogs.First a brief geography lesson. On the map Italy looks like a boot kicking a ball. That ball is the island of Sicily (orange in the map above). The foot kicking the ball has[...]

I recently found myself in Rome, Italy, on a Friday night, an ocean and continent away from my coveted wine tasting group, traveling with my wife Julie, her son Bobbie and his wife Meghan . In our first night in this timeless city, after walking through its various landmarks for countless hours,  we alighted in Il Barroccio, a touristy restaurant on Via dei Pastini, not far from the Pantheon. It was in a side street full of lively restaurants, their outdoor tables three seats across on each side, leaving a narrow gauntlet for a steady stream of passersby. Drawn by[...]

As I pack for a two week vacation in Italy, my dislike of Italian wines legendary among my wine friends, I  pause for a moment to reflect on a peculiarity of the wine experience, one that will see me through my upcoming trip: wines that might be disliked at home, somehow taste different in their own homes.There is no better example of this than the bottle you see above, a German red from the Pfalz region of Southwestern Germany, varietals unknown.Germany is not known for its reds, sweet whites being more renown in the high latitudes of this cooler region.[...]

I once had a cross-eyed girlfriend. She was not grotesquely so, no Marty Feldman. She merely had one eye slightly off-kilter, but she was otherwise very lovely. Her eyes, so subtly but distinctly defective, in my eyes, added to her beauty. I was reminded of her last night, during our weekly Friday night tasting and mentioned it to my group as we were discussing defects in wine.One of our traditional favorites, Domaine Tempier Bandol, that hails from southern Provence, along the Mediterranean coast, east of Marseilles, a wine that we think features the best expression of the Mouvedre grape, has[...]

My recent preoccupation with Bordeaux vintages took me down memory lane into certain years that I recall as landmarks that I experienced in my own wine journey. Two in particular had to do with pinot noir.The first occurred soon after I joined my Friday night wine tasting group in late 1995. In those days I was mostly a California chardonnay enthusiast and did not have a palate for much more. I discovered that my new wine group was very Burgundy oriented, and while they sampled a large variety of wines, pinot noir from this famed region, and the precious few domestic winemakers who[...]