AltWeeklies Wire
How Local is Local?new

From barley to bottle in Virginia.
C-Ville Weekly |
Megan Headley |
11-08-2011 |
Food+Drink
Drinking From the Gardennew

Incorporate summer produce into cocktail time.
C-Ville Weekly |
Megan Headley |
06-21-2011 |
Food+Drink
How I Learned to Stop Eating Junk in 28 Daysnew
One reporter spends 28 days following a “reduced fat, high fiber, controlled carbohydrate” menu.
C-Ville Weekly |
Caite White |
04-28-2010 |
Food+Drink
How Do You Smell 200 Things at Once? Drink Winenew
The average human detects 2,000 smells, and experts estimate that there are 200 smells in wine. Compare that to only four tastes, and you can see that wine-tasting should really be called wine-smelling. So why do we rely so much on taste?
C-Ville Weekly |
Megan Headley |
09-30-2009 |
Food+Drink
We Come to Praise Burgundy's Other White Grapenew
Seldom in a starring role, Aligoté is more often found as a component of Crémant de Bourgogne or in the ubiquitous French cocktail, kir, which is one part cassis and deux parts Aligoté. However, leading a quiet Aligoté revolution in his village of Bouzeron in southern Burgundy is Aubert de Villaine.
C-Ville Weekly |
Megan Headley |
09-16-2009 |
Food+Drink
Finding Great Australian Wines Out in the Bushnew

I spent a few days last month in the main winemaking region of Western Australia, Margaret River, tasting a lot of its trademark Cab Sauvignon and Shiraz and Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blends. We got our palates on some more unexpected stuff, too.
C-Ville Weekly |
Cathy Harding |
09-09-2009 |
Food+Drink
No Need to Wait for Cooler Weather -- Go Ahead and Throw Your Red Wine on Icenew
There are still a few rules to this seemingly unruly idea -- the first relates to temperature and the other pertains to type.
C-Ville Weekly |
Megan Headley |
08-26-2009 |
Food+Drink
New Federal Food Safety Regulations Won't Impact Small Farmsnew
Locavores may have raised their hackles last week when reading that the Obama administration released a series of new proposals to regulate a number of foods, including eggs, poultry and beef. But farms with fewer than 3,000 laying hens would be exempt from the new rules on salmonella testing and refrigeration. The exception reflects small farms' reduced operation scale and the uneven costs these would levy on them.
C-Ville Weekly |
Melissa Batchelor Warnke |
07-22-2009 |
Food+Drink
Viva la Vinho Verde! Cheers to Portugal's Green Goddessnew
Termed "green wine" for its youthfulness rather than its color, Vinho Verde is low in alcohol (typically 9-11 percent), high in acidity, and often retails at less than $10 a bottle. Your goal is to drink it within a year after bottling, at its first flush of youth.
C-Ville Weekly |
Megan Headley |
07-08-2009 |
Food+Drink
Tags: Vinho Verde, wine
Hitchhiker's Guide to Wine: Georgia and Hungarynew

Sometimes hitchhikers have to stand in the rain for a while. Not every ride you catch takes you exactly where you wanted to go. But that's no reason to quit. Remember the hitchhiker's motto: travel to strange places, meet interesting wines, and drink them.
C-Ville Weekly |
J. Tobias Beard |
03-25-2009 |
Food+Drink
Is Nonalcoholic Wine For Real?new
The problem with wine is that if you heat it to remove the alcohol, you end up damaging all of the stuff that isn't alcohol, precisely the stuff you want to keep.
C-Ville Weekly |
J. Tobias Beard |
01-14-2009 |
Food+Drink
Sour Grapes: If Anyone Orders Norton, I'm Leavingnew
Norton tastes terrible. There's just no way around it. I've had countless versions, from many of the 21 wineries in the state that offer Norton, and I just can't understand the appeal.
C-Ville Weekly |
J. Tobias Beard |
01-07-2009 |
Food+Drink
Does Paying $20 for a Bottle of Wine Make Sense in Today's Economy?new
Virginia wine has a lot going for it. Still, for some people, it can't compete with lower-priced wine from places like Chile, Argentina and especially Australia.
C-Ville Weekly |
J. Tobias Beard |
11-19-2008 |
Food+Drink
Can We Look into Wine's Future?new
Despite grueling conditions, barrel tasting is a time-honored way for wine critics and winemakers to get some idea how the coming vintage will measure up.
C-Ville Weekly |
J. Tobias Beard |
11-12-2008 |
Food+Drink
Talking About Talking About Winenew
Many of us misunderstand the nature of wine language. You see, wine language is poetic -- a way of describing not what a wine objectively tastes like, but what it was like for the writer to taste the wine. Good wine writing presents an experience, not an analysis.
C-Ville Weekly |
J. Tobias Beard |
11-05-2008 |
Food+Drink