When you accept a tasting menu at a fine‑dining institution, you are entering into a contract of taste, trust, and surrender. It is not merely
Wine Without Context is Wine Half-Tasted
In wine circles, blind tasting is treated as a kind of moral high ground. You conceal the label, obscure the origin, hide the grape and
Palate as Palimpsest: How Memory Shapes the Taste of the Present
A palimpsest is a manuscript on which the original writing has been erased to make room for new writing but of which traces of the
Should We Stop Talking about Terroir?
Before Meininger’s International stopped publishing last week, Robert Joseph, the Devil’s Advocate, published a piece there in which he implored people who sell wine to
Food Writing and Messy Materiality
There is a particular incantatory tone that haunts much of contemporary food writing—a metaphysical streak dressed in lyrical finery. You know the type. It speaks
Why Appellations Matter—but Maybe Not So Much
There’s a reason why a wine lover can recall the shape of a bottle or the slope of a vineyard long before they can conjure
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 