Word: grapes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...York restaurant consultant and the author of a guidebook called The Wine Avenger, Gluckstern has spent the better part of a decade crusading on behalf of Riesling, the dominant German varietal that has been cruelly stereotyped on American shores as tasting sweeter than Katie Couric dipped in caramel. "All grapes are not created equal," Gluckstern says. "There's an acid-sugar balance in great Riesling that you won't find in any other grape." Stubborn U.S. diners have mostly ignored him and gone on sipping their Chardonnay...
...Germany, Riesling grows along the imposing hillsides of the Mosel and Rhine rivers, at latitudes at which grape cultivation is difficult under the best conditions and downright impossible in bad ones. It's that struggle for survival that gives the German variety its edge. The grape can be harvested late to make the syrupy sweet wines Americans are averse to, or picked early for dry Chardonnay imitations. Epicures prefer the middle ground, in which the wine has a delicate floral scent, low alcohol content, a light, fruity sweetness at the front and a slightly acid aftertaste that cleanses the palate...
...biography as the thuggish, illiterate, pre-Ali heavyweight champion might be, that's not nearly so strange as Tosches' technique: a gumbo of archival minutiae, back-alley hearsay, self-serving memory and rank speculation, all underscored with periodic outbursts of prose so embarrassingly purple it could shame a grape. Most provocative theory: that Liston's two fights with the young Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali were fixed by the Nation of Islam. Most convincing characterization: the drowning-in-slime, Mob-controlled world of big-time boxing circa 1960. Most vexing question: why anyone would commit a sentence like this one, typical...
...Chianti (key-AHN-teeh), for all you philistines, comes from the Chianti district of Central Italy. Chianti derives its name from the Latin word clangor meaning “sound of a trumpet”—quite appropriate given the fanfare this fine wine deserves. The Sangiovese grape (red) is the sine qua non of Chianti. It is used alone or with the Canaiolo Nero (red) and/or other white grape varieties such as the Trebbiano Toscano and the Malvasia del Chianti. Chianti is a dry, crisp, acidic example of a light to medium-bodied red wine. The tannin...
...Italy. One in which an opera singer’s wretched performance was greeted by a barrage of wine flasks or “fiasci” at the offending artist. Hence the fiasco. But I digress. The supertuscan promiscuously blends a veritable smorgasbord of internationally known grape varieties. The veneer of its glamor has faded as Chianti producers have since rebounded. The supertuscan’s meretricious colors are shining through. Happily, a cordon sanitaire has been placed around these charlatans. It is not Chianti. I refuse to dignify it. Nolle prosequi...