Sharon Bowman Mushroom hunting It’s mushroom season; we’re in the thick of it, and beneath, say, a squab en crapaudine or a ballotine of wild duck will be a little heap of black chanterelles or mousserons or cèpes. A few days ago, I was wandering around with a camera and snapped these boletes raw. It […]
Sharon Bowman Glug It’s November and is almost time for the „new” wines to come out. I got an early taste of one a couple of days ago when I stopped by at the unusual wine store La Cave de L’Insolite. (I say this with redundant literalness: „insolite” being the French for, well, „unusual.”) 2009 […]
Sharon Bowman Mushrooms, boar and blood It was a dark, dark, dark fall night. The wind was whipping, and garish bright lights festooned the outside of the Cirque d’Hiver, where many children and balloon-holding parents streamed across the rue Amelot, blocking a taxi in which Barbra Austin and I were ensconsed, late for dinner. One […]
Sharon Bowman A mouthful of pig and a handful of grapes I love those sticky, fatty, piggy dishes, especially as in Paris, autumn is starting to cool down the air and a cold breeze sometimes picks at my cuffs. Lately, I stopped in at Le Comptoir and knew I had to glut myself on some […]
Sharon Bowman Py in the sky Paris may not be Rome, but it does have a few hills. Accordingly, I like walking up to the heights of Belleville to stop in at Le Baratin. Last night, I did this, and sat down to a nice terra cotta dish of tripe and veal foot stewed with […]
Sharon Bowman A trio of St. Joes At the bar at Fish, things were getting loud. We’d gone through some Gatinois champagne and some ethereal form of Alsatian riesling; now it was time to buckle down and go tannic. 2006 Gonon Saint-Joseph – I have had this wine a number of times in the past […]
Sharon Bowman Food, simply, or wine, simply One weekend day this summer, I was deep within a cold cellar, talking with a fellow wine geek. We were slurping at a 1997 Clape Cornas (wonderfully funky, like an exploding cherry tinged with brettanomyces) and started evoking the visions of food that were beginning to shimmer into […]
Sharon Bowman This quintessence of must In the countrysides, the harvests are getting under way, and in the cities, the fall Foires aux Vins are stocking shelves in air-conditioned supermarkets with gleaming bottles of Bordeaux. Special offers are sliding into mailboxes and popping up on computer screens. It’s la rentrée, and, as opposed to the […]
Sharon Bowman What we talk about when we talk about wine In a week, a wine board I like to participate on will celebrate its first birthday. Realizing this, and thinking back over the many online conversations I have had, spanning from Tahiti to Burgundy, by way of Mount Etna, Rioja and Cornas, I thought […]
Sharon Bowman Little Cramant bubbles I think it was Richard Juhlin who said that it was hard to make bad wine in Cramant.* I have to concur: that village on the Côte des Blancs turns out some of the most deep and racy champagnes there are, from Diebolt-Vallois and Lilbert Fils to the profound Vieille […]
Sharon Bowman Dark mysteries of the cellars Last night I had a dark and cobwebby bottle of 1976 López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva. It was whitish with the work of long-dead spiders, and a thick black layer of something frighteningly giving lived in the punt. After a slight jump back (trying not to […]
Sharon Bowman Riesling: foe or waste of time? The title here is a feint. I was scribbling messages with a friend and wondered what might be interesting to talk about on this blog. His suggestion? Knowing my proclivities: „Riesling: foe or waste of time?” Of course, I countered that the answer wouldn’t make for a […]
Sharon Bowman Wine? Or crack? This blog post is a public service announcement for those interested in wine. The picture of the seemingly harmless bottle above is one you should stamp into your retinas and retain. Blink twice. You see this bottle, here, now, safely virtual. If you see this bottle in the real world, […]
Sharon Bowman Naturally unnatural: orange wines I was sitting at my desk on a dark, cloudless spring night with a lamp shining indirect, yellowish light. I had a bottle on the glass desktop, next to the MacBook. The bottle was cool to the touch. The label was minimalistic, hand-drawn, and from the side peeked out […]
Sharon Bowman Natural and unnatural activities It has been pointed out to me that of late, I have been doing more of the tactile (tasting, drinking) approach to wine than the cerebral (writing). That must change, now, as I have agreed to parnter up with VLM, of the stupendous wine blog The Vulgar Little Monkey […]