Several days ago we opened a very special bottle of wine: Colmant Absolu Zero Dosage NV. Peter eased the cork from the bottle and poured both of us a glass. As we watched the bubbles rise in our glasses many fond memories of visiting Colmant Cap Classique & Champagne in South Africa’s Franschhoek Valley came back to us. There is […]
Portugal’s Alentejo wine region is a warm one. João Barroso, Director of Sustainability for Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Program (WASP), recently told a group of wine media and writers during a teleconference that the region routinely experiences some of the warmest temperatures in Europe. It is also prone to drought. These factors coupled with climate change prompted the region’s wineries […]
Before we visited Tyrrell’s Wines in October 2019, as part of the Wine Media Conference held in the Hunter Valley, I didn’t have a full appreciation for the history behind the winery. But standing beside the ironbark slab hut built by Edward Tyrrell, when he settled 320 acres along the Brokenback Range at Pokolbin in 1858, brought that history alive. […]
Firing Blancs, the third book in the Felix Hart wine buyer series, is just as funny as the first two. It documents Felix’s further adventures as the wine buyer for a large English supermarket chain. The author Peter Stafford-Bow has a great sense of humor and an entertaining writing style. This is a fun book to sit and read in […]
Stuart Smith knew he needed to look to the mountains of Napa Valley, not the valley floor, to find a site that would allow him to make the elegant, balanced, acid-driven wines he enjoyed drinking. He found what he was looking for in a 200-acre property on Spring Mountain. The property had been home to a small vineyard in the […]
Bob Tillman describes himself as someone not content to simply pursue hobbies in retirement. But after listening to the story of how he came to establish Alta Colina in the Adelaida District of Paso Robles, I wonder if he might just pursue his hobbies with a bit more drive than most retirees. Bob didn’t discover wine until he and his […]
Anne Bousquet questioned her father’s 1997 purchase of nearly 1000 acres in remote Gualtallary in Argentina’s Mendoza region with humor, asking, “What are you doing? Buying a beach? All sand, no sea?” Well, Jean Bousquet has had the last laugh as Domaine Bousquet is now well established with certified-organic vineyards in the Tupungato district of Mendoza’s Uco Valley, a modern […]
Most of Australia is far too hot and dry to support vineyards, but many coastal areas are well suited to viticulture and this is where most of Australia’s wine regions are located. As you might imagine in a country the size of Australia there is a big range of climates and soil types as well as grape varieties. All of […]
Today we’re sipping Pinot Noir, which is one of my favorite varieties. Pinot Noir can be anything from weightless and etherial in the glass to medium bodied and brooding, which is part of the charm of this variety for me. These two expressions of Merry Edwards Pinot Noir, sent to us as tasting samples, are distinctly different. Merry Edwards […]
Tasmania lies off Australia’s south coast and is separated from the rest of Australia by Bass Strait. The Australian island state is cool, windswept and largely wild. Tasmania is home to a small wine industry defined by one GI (geographical indication), Tasmania, and seven informal wine growing regions. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are the two most-planted varieties, so they are […]
We enjoy wine, food and travel. Pull That Cork is a chronicle of our wine adventures, the food and wine pairings we create and our travels which are increasingly organized around wine.
