Grenache

Clean-crafted wines show their mettle

Clean-crafted wines show their mettle

We're suspicious of food or drink that purports to have certain health benefits. The recent boom in ‶clean wine″ is a case in point. From the marketing, we expect every low-fat vegan bottle to arrive rolled up in a yoga mat. That's not wine. But in the world of clean wine, there's a refreshing alternative that seems well-grounded in both taste and science. Scout & Cellar (scoutandcellar.com) is a 5-year-old company that makes and markets wine that comes with what they call a Clean Crafted Commitment®. It's their registered trademark. They apply it to wine that's grown with no synthetic pesticides, vinified without synthetic additives or added sweetener, then lab tested after bottling to confirm that nothing untoward snuck in. Many of the wines carry...Read More
Cannonau takes its place in world of Grenache

Cannonau takes its place in world of Grenache

On February 10, Sardinia struts its stuff as it hosts the fifth annual Grenaches du Monde competition in the town of Alghero. It's the first time that Cannonau di Sardegna (the Sardinian version of Grenache) has really taken center stage in the international competitions. The most widely planted wine grape in the world, Grenache is grown extensively in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, California, and Australia. In the 2016 competition, Spanish wineries dominated the gold medals, French and Sardinian winemakers the silver, and all three countries won bronze. No other nation even placed. Someday DNA research will unravel the tangled, contentious history of the grape. Grenache was long thought to hail from the southern Rhone, where it's the backbone of Châteauneuf-du-Pape....Read More