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3 weeks ago | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
David Schildknecht considers the changing fortunes of once-derided grape varieties such as Carignan, Aligoté, and Palomino. Ostensibly workhorse grapes sometimes gain luster thanks to prestigious champions. But it doesn’t take famous growers to raise the profile of a workhorse dramatically. Consider Carignan.
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4 weeks ago | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht |Beverley Blanning MW
David Schildknecht reviews Wines of the Loire Valley by Beverley Blanning MW. Jacqueline Friedrich published her lovely Wine and Food Guide to the Loire back in 1998, a planned successor getting only as far as a 2011 volume devoted to “The Kingdom of Sauvignon,” so detailed and tasting note-dependent that full Loire coverage in that format would have run to many rapidly dated volumes.
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1 month ago | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht |Beverley Blanning MW
David Schildknecht reviews Wines of the Loire Valley by Beverley Blanning MW. Jacqueline Friedrich published her lovely Wine and Food Guide to the Loire back in 1998, a planned successor getting only as far as a 2011 volume devoted to “The Kingdom of Sauvignon,” so detailed and tasting note-dependent that full Loire coverage in that format would have run to many rapidly dated volumes.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
Until the last decade of the 20th century, Grüner Veltliner’s reputation stood in inverse relationship to its ubiquity. When Thudichum and Dupré in 1872 characterized it as “one of the most fertile vines in existence,” they doubtless intended a backhanded compliment.
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Oct 4, 2024 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
Leisurely ripening is associated not just with “cool-climate” viticulture but with enhanced vinous quality generally. Climatic warming is associated with earlier. It might seem obvious, then, that under the sign of climate change, more slowly ripening grape varieties, clones, or selections should be promoted. That’s certainly how Jon Bonné sees it.
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Aug 21, 2024 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
In a recent posting on his website The Morning Claret, Simon Woolf astutely contemplates the state of wine competitions. Intriguing and encouraging are the dynamics of “discussion, retasting, and encouragement” among judges that regularly result in reassessments and a mutual learning experience.
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Feb 14, 2024 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
David Schildknecht considers the various methods open to winegrowers confronted by the enormous changes and challenges created by climate change, and finds that many of the lessons learned apply far beyond the vineyard. Addressing climate disruption is oft conceived by wine growers as rolling back on, or holding the line against, rising must weights, diminishing acidity, and increasingly early harvests.
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Dec 11, 2023 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
Recent columns in this series have lamented how appellations, in the name of provenance—enshrining place as fine wine’s prime distinguishing feature—almost ineluctably overstep, demanding decoding beyond the patience of most of the consumers they were ostensibly meant to protect, who thus end up confused and underinformed (WFW 79, p.38). Terroir gets conflated with typicity, which turns tyrannical (WFW 62, p.44). Spurious regulatory details proliferate (WFW 75, p.54).
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Sep 19, 2023 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
David Schildknecht reviews The New French Wine: Redefining the World’s Greatest Wine Culture by Jon Bonné. In 2013, Jon Bonné, then wine critic with the San Francisco Chronicle, received international attention for his book The New California Wine. A year later, he announced plans to cover France in a similar way. By the time imminent publication of The New French Wine was announced, the book was eagerly anticipated and represented four years of intensive research.
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Aug 22, 2023 | 
worldoffinewine.com | David Schildknecht
In his latest column on the strengths and weaknesses of wine appellations, David Schildknecht explores Champagne grape varieties. The notion of appellation as designating not just a place of origin but also its typical vinous expression suggests that a given appellation can have only so long a run until cépage and methodology change. The Côte d’Or’s thousand-year continuity with Pinot Noir is unusual, as is Bordeaux’s seamless segue from dominance of Carmenère and Malbec, to Cabernet and Merlot.
