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D’Artagnan’s Cassoulet Kit for Home Cooks and Armchair Travelers – Part I

Cassoulet

Anyone who has indulged in Cassoulet will tell you that between the layers of duck fat and decadent sausages—confit duck legs and bone white Coco Tarbais beans—that there is pure magic. It is easily Gascony’s most celebrated and recognizable dish, named after the deep earthenware vessel it cooks in, the cassolle, Cassoulet inhabits a romantic place in […]

In search of the hidden harmonies between Rhône Valley wines and Asian Cuisine

Manila Lion

Like any great operatic singer, Rhône wines have range. They can be muscular and profound with a black-fruited core that ripples through a percussion background of pitch-perfect tannins, acidity, and that earthy, smokey feralness that lets you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re drinking something Old World—something with history and roots thrust […]

Producer Profile: Finca Viladellops

Finca Viladellops

Along the rocky spine of the Massif Garraf, a calcareous mountain chain that extends to the Mediterranean Sea, in the heart of the Penedès is the hamlet of Viladellops. The town is a tightly-knit group of 18 farmhouses—Viladellops’ history dates back to the year 958 when the order of the Templars flocked to the town […]

Producer Profile: The Expressive Wines of Erste+Neue

Weingut Kaltern

Located in Caldaro, a storybook village on Alto Adige’s breathtaking wine road, the Erste+Neue cooperative winery was established in 1986 following the merger of the Erste Kellerei (founded in 1900) and the Neue Kellerei (founded in 1925). Translated, the name First + New reflects the winery’s nod to tradition while embracing experimentation and an openness […]

Spring Getaway: Dining in Champagne

Amuse bouche

My previous life as a winemaker found me living amidst the rolling hills of southeastern Washington’s Palouse. Carved out by the Missoula floods and crowned in layers of wind-blown loess, it’s a breathtaking landscape that attracts photographers from all over the world. Following harvest, the region changes her gown from green to gold. In the […]

Experience Oregon & Washington Wine Country Aboard a Replica Coastal Steamer

UnCruise Adventures

Join Me for a 7-Night Wine-Themed Cruise on the Columbia, Snake & Willamette Rivers Evidence of the ice age floods is easy to spot — 15,000 years later, the results are as profound as they are delicious. Lifting a glass of glinting ruby-hued wine, it’s impossible not to appreciate the lasting effects ancient geology had […]

Washington State’s Founding Winery Turns 50

Chateau Ste. Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon 50th Anniversary Special Bottling 2015

On the cusp of Chateau Ste. Michelle’s 50th anniversary, there is a palpable hum of excitement in the air. One can feel it coursing throughout the winery’s newly expanded visitor center. On the afternoon we visit, it is packed with garrulous patrons, looking relaxed and newly-tanned as they milled around sections still cordoned off by […]

Brancaia: The Best of Both Worlds

2013 Brancaia Maremma Toscana Ilatraia

Like so many New World winemakers, Barbara Widmer’s childhood landscape wasn’t shaped by a life amongst the vines. Her parent’s journey into winemaking began, more or less, as a hobby that stemmed from the purchase of an abandoned hillside Castellina named Brancaia. “I grew up in Zurich; I had no ambition or dream to move […]

Umpqua Undercover

Terry Brandborg, Stephen Reustle, and Earl Jones

The Umpqua Valley has a streak of wildness to it. Sparsely populated, its towns lie scattered amidst a series of rugged, undulating hills thatched in spikey Ponderosa pine and black oak. The Umpqua River and it’s winding tributaries churn and tumble through a network of valleys formed by the collision of three mountain ranges—the Klamath, […]

CHRISTINE HAVENS
McMinnville, OR

christine@christine-havens.com