Sense of Place

Tag: wine tasting

  • From Humid North Carolina to Galicia: Following Albariño Home

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    Nicolette Cagle
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    by Nicolette L. Cagle, June 14, 2026 The first time I knowingly tasted Albariño (Alvarinho) was over a decade ago in a blend produced by Bedell Cellars, a winery on the North Fork of Long Island, New York. The wine had a floral nose and notes of grapefruit, influenced in part by the Sauvignon Blanc…

  • Notes on Colchagua Valley Wines

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    Nicolette Cagle
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    Originally published 2021, with updates in 2026. Overview. Chile has been producing wine since the middle of the sixteenth century and is one of the few major wine-producing countries unaffected by phylloxera. Most of its vines therefore grow on their own roots rather than being grafted onto phylloxera-resistant rootstock (The Wine Diplomats, n.d.; Puckette, 2016).…

  • Notes on Nebbiolo in Piemonte

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    Nicolette Cagle
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    This post was written in 2021, with additional updates in 2026. Overview. Piemonte has been producing wine since the Middle Ages, and Nebbiolo has been documented there since the thirteenth century (Bansal 2017; Robinson, Harding, and Vouillamoz 2012). By 1431, the village of La Morra imposed fines on people who cut Nebbiolo vines (Bansal 2017).…

  • Greek Wine Notes

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    Nicolette Cagle
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    Greek wine reaches back through thousands of years of cultivation, cultural exchange, disruption, and revival. This tasting explores several of Greece’s distinctive native grapes and the landscapes that shape them—from the elevated vineyards of Macedonia to the limestone soils of Kefalonia and the high plateaus of the Peloponnese. Greek Wine History. Wine has been produced…

  • Tasting the Spanish Routes to Cuba

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    Nicolette Cagle
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    by Nicolette L. Cagle, February 26, 2019 The earliest colonial movement from Spain to the Americas drew heavily from Andalusia. Peter Boyd-Bowman found that Andalusians made up the largest regional group among identified Spanish emigrants from 1493 to 1519; among 195 identified arrivals in Cuba from 1520 to 1539, 41 percent came from Andalusia (Boyd-Bowman…

  • Selected Notes on the Wines of Washington State

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    Nicolette Cagle
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    by Nicolette L. Cagle, October 25, 2018 In the United States, Washington State is a top producer of powerfully structured, berry-driven Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon (MacNeil 2001). Its wine tradition began in the late 1800s with the arrival of German and Italian immigrants. By the 1960s, Washington vineyards were commercially producing northern white grapes, especially…