When Wine Blogging is really good

I don't do this very often, but once in a while we here at 2 Days per Bottle take a break to enjoy the world, and the wine world, around us. Today, I would like to commend a couple of fellow wine-bloggers, and direct your attention to them. Sure, there are plenty of wine blogs out there, and many of them are absolutely terrific. If you want to find a few to start following, you can't go wrong clicking on anything on the blogroll to your right (also, I hope you already follow AND subscribe to 2 Days per Bottle and The 89 Project). Today, though, I want to point out a couple of blog posts that show just what Wine Blogging can be.

The first is from McDuff's Food and Wine Trail, and the post is entitled Southern Exposure. It is David McDuff's entry for Wine Blogging Wednesday, sponsored this month by The Wine Case. In it, David writes as good a description as I have ever seen on the effect of northern or southern exposure (the direction a mountainside faces, not the direction a flasher, ahem, "points"), desribing the difference between two different Barolos grown within sight of each other. Here is the intro:

Have you ever found yourself enticed by the idea of a “bargain” Barolo? (Yes, I’m writing about Piedmont again, just like for last month's WBW.) Ever wondered what the difference is between those two theoretically regal Piedmontese reds sitting next to each other on the shelf, one priced around $30 and the other over $50? If you have, then you know there is a wealth of possible answers. One of the most meaningful, though, happens to be one that I’m guessing might not come immediately to mind: exposure. Not brand exposure, mind you, but vineyard exposure – the position of a site on a hillside and its correlating exposure to the sun’s rays.

Now click on over there and read the rest.

The second comes from Dr. Vino, and if you don't know who he is, you're in for a treat. Today, he writes about the curious effect of a century of war, starting with Otto von Bismark and ending (at least for now), not with the end of World War II, but with the creation of the European Union. What is he writing about? A vineyard where A Border Runs Through It. He tells the story of Friedrich Wilhelm Becker, who crosses from Germany to France, and back again, every time he wanders from the eastern side of his vineyard to the western side.

Today, about two-thirds of Becker’s 35 acres of vineyards are in Alsace with the remainder, as well as, the winery lying in Pfalz, specifically the town of Schweigen.

Is it German wine, French wine, or both? Does he need two different sets of labels? Fortunately, an accord was reached involving water, lumber, and probably at least three verses each of Lili Marlene:



So what do you grow if your vineyard straddles the French and German borders? Riesling? Gewürztraminer? Nope, Pinot Noir. Or Spätburgunder, as the call it locally.

There you have it, two great posts from two great wine blogs. Enjoy. And finally, since we're taking a break from wine reviewing, at least for the afternoon, the Big Wooden Guy is going to take his dog for a walk:







This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.