A Carafe of Red

For as long as I care to remember and for as long as I've been reading wine books and articles I've never found any writer who "speaks" to me more than Gerald Asher.  I first became familiar with him through Gourmet magazine in the mid 1970's.  Not only were the articles a good read and educational to me, but when I somehow managed to find some of the exact wines he was writing about and recommending (not always easy in Ohio at that time) I liked them.

I subscribed to that magazine for quite a long period of time and Mr. Asher's columns were the primary reason.  They went to work with me and found there way onto the copy machines and then into three ring binders.  Short of saving the whole magazine that was the easiest way to keep them in order.  I still have a couple of those binders - now filled with yellowing pages.

Fast forward to the present and there is new collection of columns just published in a volume titled A Carafe of Red.  What a perfect way to spend a couple of days - outdoors in the early morning and late evening and indoors when the weather was too hot.  This a collection of columns so all one needs to do is pick a spot and start reading, there's no need to read them in order.  That said, when I finished the book the first column was my favorite - A Carafe of Red.  This particular column examines the resurgence of the Corbieres region of southwest France.  There's an outstanding discussion of searching California for chardonnay clones and a wealth of others way too numerous to go into here.

Some things rarely change, and Gerald Asher being on top of his game is one I'm thankful for.

A Carafe of Red, Gerald Asher, University of California Press, 2012.