Wine reviews are concise (more or less) descriptions and evaluations of wine; no surprise there! However, can a wine review be separated from the reviewer or from the reader (reviewee as it were)? The philosophical ideas of Kant make this too complex for me and I think for most of you yawning at this moment, but let me just say that though I spent the day in Portsmouth, NH checking-out the wine boutiques and enjoying good company, food and drink, and coming down with some unknown malady, I trust that I'll be as unbiased, minus reality's mercurial nature as I can be.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire is old and new, first settled in 1630 it has convoluted (cow-path) streets filled with shoppers, brick buildings, yet is high-tech, and artsy, thus it is probably the 'heppest' place in NH ; there are a number of wine boutiques which I've wanted to visit and for the most part we did.
First stop, just outside the city, in Dover, NH the Dover Wine Company has an interesting collection of wines, many of which I hadn't seen before, and is a wine-shop definitely worth the visit. Off to Portsmouth proper and Attrezzi , and it's very own self confessed "alcoholic" (I think he was kidding) wine advocate (his words, not mine), where you can find other interesting wines and many other things.
Now to a treasure of information and history we visited David Campbell's "Ceres Street Wine Merchants" where I picked up a bottle of his own label Zinfandel, as well as the pleasure of David's company, his love of wine, and a bit of humanity hard, if not impossible, to find in any mega-store, or most boutiques for that matter. Thank you David, you were the highlight of my visit!
As for the other boutique, Corks and Curds, the one having a party of some sort, where when the boutique doesn't close until 6 PM, but where someone in Corks and Curds at 5:45 PM 'shut the door in my face' and put up the closed sign, I'll have no comment but to say I'll never, ever, go back there.
Of the wines I bought, I'll be reviewing three up front, and ending with Ceres (own label) Zinfandel.
I like how you wax poetic about New Hampshire. It's a state I've not seen, and given how close, maybe someday I should change that. Perhaps if I evaluate Kant's thoughts on Categorical Imperatives, I might realize why I've not yet done so. But more probably, I'd just end up with a headache. :)
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