Organic Wine Journal

As organic foods and wines grow in popularity, it’s no surprise that organic cocktails are now popping up in restaurants and bars. Publishing a green version of a mixed drink book could have been as simple as taking your average bartender’s guide and adding organic before every ingredient. Fortunately, Paul Abercrombie has gone the extra [...]

The bottle was weird. There, I said it. The glass was clear, the wine was a deep garnet and the cork was synthetic green. The label showed a caricature of two (presumably) French dudes stomping grapes and strumming a Picasso-like guitar. On the back label, the words “Gypsy Melody” were written at the top followed [...]

You would be hard-pressed to find Monkey Wine at your local store, but thanks to John Peragine’s 101 Recipes For Making Wild Wine At Home you can attempt to make it yourself, provided you have 3 lbs. of ripe bananas and some raisins on hand. In fact, Peragine shows you how to make wine out [...]

The first week of the New Year is the slowest one for restaurants. We eat out then to show support and take advantage of the lower crowd levels. We also wanted to ring in the year with a toast to one of our all-time favorite wine makers Tony Coturri. We made our way to Kuma [...]

Some moons ago I was looking forward to meeting James and Annie Millton at their winery in Gisborne but was thwarted by storms and then a huge landslide that blocked all access. On returning to the UK I exchanged emails with James about organics and biodynamics. With apologies in advance for any misrepresentation, here is [...]

James and Annie Millton’s established their vineyards in 1984 and make a delicious range of hand-crafted fine wines. Pioneers, they’ve been biodynamic from the outset, long before many more famous estates around the world converted to the creed. Their estate is at Manutuke, just outside Gisborne in New Zealand, in North Island’s Poverty Bay, the [...]

This last decade in wine has been one of polarization – two trains speeding down the rails with different destinations in mind. The world of branded image-driven corporate wine got bigger. The top brands consolidated their stranglehold at the distribution and retail level. Mega corporations with thousands of employees pressed and sold billions of gallons [...]

When I realized that I would be bumming around Spain for a bit, the winemaker I was immediately referred to was Telmo Rodriguez. Besides being one of Spain’s biggest winemakers, Telmo is known for supporting the Return to Terroir movement. He creates authentic Spanish wines at a reasonable price point, in opposition to the popular [...]