Results tagged: Wine

Tomorrow evening Per Se kicks off its An American Table at Per Se dinner series with special guest Wells Guthrie of Sonoma County's Copain Wine Cellars. The series will allow guests to experience limited production American wines alongside a seven-course tasting menu, "specially crafted to highlight the old world nuances and flavors reflected in the wines." In addition, each guest winemaker will lead a discussion around their techniques, influences and personal winemaking style.

We spoke with Guthrie recently to learn about Copain, his background and his past experience working with the team at The French Laundry and Per Se.

How long has Copain been around?

1999 was our first vintage. We did a whopping 300 cases.

How much are you producing now?

For our vineyard designated wines, we do about 4,000 cases. That's split over six different Pinots, a few Syrahs, so about 10 wines. We have an appellation wine called Tous Ensemble, which means "all together." The appellation wines that we make are more readily accessible.

How did you get into winemaking?

I started working at Wine Spectator. I worked there for two years as their tasting coordinator in San Francisco. I set up all of the tastings for the domestic wines. I got to taste all of the wine, which was cool. Getting to taste 3,000 to 4,000 wines a year gets your palette honed for what you do and don't like.

We've heard about plenty of sellers offering incentives for houses in the down market, but this is the sweetest one yet. The seller of this Evanston, Illinois property, who is the owner of the rare wine auction house Hart Davis Hart, is pre-stocking the wine cellar with 250 bottles from his personal collection, including a 100-year-old Madeira and rare bottles of Pichon-Lalande. $1.8 million will buy you the 8,000 square foot house and the estimated $14,000 wine collection.

House of the Week: Some Wine With Your House? [WSJ]

In today's New York Times wine author and fellow James Beard awards live blogger Tyler Colman, aka Dr. Vino, contributed an Op-Ed piece calling for an improvement in the quality of U.S. wines sold in boxes. As we all know boxed wine has long been derided in this country for its inferior quality, the main weakness Dr. Vino identified for its lack of popular acceptance.

Higher quality boxed wine is now being sold by a number of respected foreign producers and the good doctor points out that earlier this month Italy's Agricultural Ministry announced that some wines that receive the government's quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes. Will U.S. producers follow their lead?

We hope so. The reasons for promoting the switch from glass to boxes are both noble and practical. For one thing paper weighs less than glass so the carbon footprint of boxed wine is quite a bit smaller than glass. The reason most likely to resonate with a mass audience, aside from taste, is that boxed wine keeps for up to four weeks. Knocking off a bottle because you have to is a fine tradition, but we admit there were nights we wished we could have enjoyed the unspoiled remainder of a fine bottle a few days later.

[Via twitter]