My twenty-something self left two gifts for the older man I would become: a doctorate in applied mathematics and four small, looseleaf notebooks. The degree opened many doors and reinforced my ability to do independent research, perform analyses, and document the results. The notebooks, along with labels from many of the bottles, form an archive of my first decade tasting wine. Between 1969 and 1979, a period covering my student and early career years, I kept detailed notes on almost everything I tasted. During most of that time, I lived in Evanston, Illinois. It was dry until 1975, necessitating runs…
Neal D. Hulkower, Ph.D., is an applied mathematician and freelance writer living in McMinnville, Oregon. While he has been writing regularly about wine-related topics since 2009, his first contributions to a wine publication appeared in the early 1970s. His wine writing can be found in academic and popular publications including the Journal of Wine Research, the Journal of Wine Economics, American Wine Society Wine Journal, Oregon Wine Press, Practical Winery & Vineyard, Wine Press Northwest, and The World of Fine Wine and on wine-searcher.com. He focuses on applications of mathematics to the world of wine, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, and reviews of wine-related books. He also enjoys covering wine events and personalities. Neal was a Field Coordinator for Slow Wine 2020 and 2021 guides. He is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers. Neal can occasionally be found pouring some of Oregon’s finest in a tasting room at the top of the Dundee Hills.
As more cool-climate regions like Germany's Mittelrhein seek grapes that can beat the heat, the rare Swiss variety Petite Arvine offers a surprising possibility.
Curing fish is a bit like baking cakes: unless one follows a particular recipe to the letter, the final result inevitably contains an element or three of surprise. Once in the oven, once in the brine, the window for intervention has passed – leaving time and temperature as the only remaining levers. I clearly lack the discipline to work with exact measurements (thus explaining my ban from baking birthday cakes), but I do enjoy the imprecise, historical art of preserving food with salt. Think: classic Sauerkraut, southern German Surfleisch, or – well – salmon. This particular side of freshly caught salmon…...
The ancient injunction to keep your friends close and your enemies closer is all very well, but in Alsace it can be hard to tell the two apart. Control of the region has swung between Germany and France like a pendulum, and the Protestantism of the one and Catholicism of the other has caused generations of religious dissidents to flee west and east respectively, to halt by the great Vosges mountains and settle on the swathe of land beside the Rhine. Which, it turned out, might have been a problematic spot in political terms, but was an ideal place to…...
Hans Ruck, 74, is fully at home in front of a stove. The German vintner, of Weingut Ruck in Iphofen, has been a serious chef for five decades, with a healthy stash of self-composed recipes — all harmonized to the wines from his estate at the edge of the Steigerwald in central Franken. “I’ve never had a beer with a meal in my life,” Ruck claims. “The harmony between food and wine is what truly brings the enjoyment.” Once Ruck gets rolling, it’s hard to stop him. You soon feel like you’re standing at the stove with him, peeking into…...
