Summer is a great time for food-centered social activities. The weather is great for eating outdoors, meaning that people with small homes can utilize their yards or even local parks and invite as many of their friends and family as they want. I love hosting small get-togethers with friends. This year, my focus has been on brunch, because who doesn’t love a good mimosa in … [Read more...]
Guillaume Thomas (Maison Noir): A French harvest nomad follows his dream in New Zealand
Isabel Gilbert Palmer interviews a French man who has settled in Havenlock North, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand and who has just started to produce wine under the Maison Noir label. Like many in the food and wine world, he took a long time to find out what he wanted to do in life and after a life in music decided to work in the wine industry, studying winemaking and wine marketing … [Read more...]
Living in the Antipodes: New world wines, new New Zealanders and the new guard
History tells us that in the early 1800’s, French Missionaries, Brothers from the Order of Saint Mary, at the direction of France’s Pope Gregory XV1 in Lyon set sail for Nouvelle Zealandia, or Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) armed with their bibles, sacramental robes, rituals and seedling grape vines. Their destination, a collection of sparsely inhabited islands, … [Read more...]
A blind wine tasting: France vs the rest of the world
There is nothing like a blind wine-tasting to get you out of your comfort zone. And if you do not know what wines are being served, it makes it all the more difficult particularly since you have no indication whether the organisers are pulling out any tricks to make it even more difficult. On a recent visit to Malta, we participated in a blind wine tasting with the theme … [Read more...]
A tour of Sicily through its wines
Goethe said in the 18th century that to have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything. Is that valid for Sicily's wine? And how do you take a tour of Sicily during a wine tasting? That was the question I tried to answer in a tasting of Sicilian wine that I presented recently. A tour of Sicily is by no means … [Read more...]
