We’ve been great fans of white Domaine de la Becassonne from the southern Rhône for ages. We first came across the wine more than two years ago when the 2006 vintage was on the market. We hardly ever drink white but enjoyed this one so much that we ordered a case. The [...]
by Stevie on February 24, 2010
We at weirdcombinations love wine. That’s it: we just love it.
So it was marvelous to be at a swanky party in Vitória, ES, Brazil a couple of weeks ago in the height of the tropical summer sipping cabernet from gorgeous stemware talking about whether or not chardonnay would be a good wine to [...]
by Stevie on February 18, 2010
Cachaça is best known in the U.S. as the fairly obscure Brazilian liquor that is mixed into caipirinhas, a cocktail that enjoyed a lot of success in New York about ten years ago (it came into fashion after the mojito). In Brazil, it´s quite another story.
Cachaça is the second most popular alcoholic beverage there [...]
by Stevie on February 16, 2010
We´d been traveling in Brazil for a week or so when I was confronted with one of the food-related things about the country that most alarms me: sweet avocado juice. I´m not completely naive and do realize that this is not that uncommon, at least in other places far from where I live. In fact, [...]
by Stevie on February 11, 2010
Ferrari-Carano is at the northern end of Dry Creek Valley, quite near the dam. We went there after visiting Sbragia on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We wanted to taste their wines and have a picnic lunch. Unfortunately they don’t have covered picnic tables at this majestic chateau-like winery and it was too [...]
by Stevie on February 10, 2010
Brazilians like beer. It´s the most popular alcoholic drink in that country and it may even be the most popular drink, period. Who knows?
Unfortuantely, I don´t like beer all that much. It´s a character flaw, I realize, but what can I do? We all have our opinions about things. [...]
While visiting Vitória north of Rio de Janeiro, the thing that I look forward to the most (after the company, of course) is suco de carambola or starfruit juice. Starfruit were simply not that common during my childhood in Northern Virginia. Sure they were around occasionally, but were really expensive, often a few dollars each. [...]
Hurrah! We finally went to Sbragia! I’ve been wanting to go there for a while, as some of you already know. The last time that we went was a failure as the others (you know who you are) didn’t want to taste the wine because they didn’t like the look of the [...]
We were cold and a bit liquored up after a picnic lunch in the rain in Dry Creek Valley the other day. That’s always a great time to try a new winery! Rued fit the bill for us: it was right across the street from where we had our luncheon and we [...]
Hegui and I are heading to Brazil next week for a while. Yesterday was our last night by ourselves for the next three weeks! To celebrate I made a simple meal of spaghetti with a sauce of garlic and escarole sautéed in olive oil with salt, black and red pepper and some parmesan cheese. We [...]