Author Archives: intoxreport

How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth it is to Have a Thankless Clerk

Posted on July 6, 2018 by intoxreport

When Nick Rowley is not seething silently behind wine shop counters, he sits loudly on the board of a Shakespearean theater group in—of all places—Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I note that as an incongruity because of all the things that the … Continue reading →

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Popping the Cherry on Michigan Maraschinos

Posted on April 19, 2018 by intoxreport

When Otto von Bismarck quipped, ‘The less people know about how laws and bar cherries are made, the better they sleep at night,’ he wasn’t talking about sausages. Likewise, if The Jungle had been set along the Croatian coast instead … Continue reading →

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The Madrone Ranger Rides Again

Posted on March 7, 2018 by intoxreport

You have your Lone Rangers and you have your Rhone Rangers, and you probably have Heidelberg Tuns filled with preposterous puns, but as always, rising above them all in the rarefied atmosphere of Spring Mountain, you have Smith-Madrone. Founded in … Continue reading →

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Scoring Wines En Primeur: It Dis What it Dis

Posted on April 14, 2017 by intoxreport

  Recently, I had a dastardly disagreement with a distinguished and discerning docent, leading to a disjointed discussion about scoring en primeur wines—extremely young wines sold as futures while they are still in the barrel. The reason for our dissent … Continue reading →

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Eugolio Pomares: Superfluous, Maybe—Super Fluids, Without a Doubt

Posted on April 13, 2017 by intoxreport

I’ve been writing about wine—bulk and otherwise—for the bulk of my life—successfully and otherwise. And yeah, some things do get old. Read a random sampling of wine reviews, starting with Parker’s and trickling down to John Doh! blogger’s, and put … Continue reading →

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Once the Lime’s in the Coconut, Put the Fiano in the Aglianico

Posted on March 14, 2017 by intoxreport

The problem with referring to Viticoltori De Conciliis ‘Latoscuro’ as ‘The Côte-Rôtie of Campania’ is that no one but a select circle of snooty, snotty, snoring old pedants will get it. People like you and me. However, reference that silly, … Continue reading →

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The Man, the Myth, the McClelland

Posted on March 7, 2017 by intoxreport

There comes a time in the life of every curmudgeon, no matter how mordant or cynical or jaded, when he must—if only for a moment—wax a little sappy. When confronted with a new, powerful wine created by a potent, old-school … Continue reading →

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Verdejo Viejo: Rueda Gravitas

Posted on March 5, 2017 by intoxreport

In central Spain, Rueda is a white wine buoy bobbing on a vast red sea. How vast? Spain produces a billion gallons of wine a year, and Castilla y Leon—Rueda’s home province—is by far the largest autonomous wine region in … Continue reading →

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There’s a Cure for the Saumur Wine Blues

Posted on February 21, 2017 by intoxreport

…And I’ll get to it at the end. In the meantime, no spoilers. No cheating. No peeking, no snooping, no shaking the box beneath the Christmas tree under penalty of a bitch-slap. I have had a pathological aversion to spoilers ever since … Continue reading →

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And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors: Me

Posted on February 12, 2017 by intoxreport

  “I have something to say, and one of these days, I’m going to stop writing these stupid books and say it.” – Living epitaph on Kassel’s tombstone. But seriously folks: As some of you know, when I accidentally checked … Continue reading →

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