Food Wine and Flavor
Wine isn’t just something you drink. It’s something that changes everything it touches. But most people never experience it that way. They choose a bottle. They hope it works. And if it does, they don’t always know why. Inside Expand Your Palate, I teach you how to actually experience wine differently—so you can notice what’s happening, understand what you like, and start to see how wine works with food, not just alongside it. If you’ve ever: had a wine you loved but couldn’t recreate the experience, felt like pairing advice didn’t quite work, or found yourself defaulting without knowing why - you’re exactly who this is for.
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Pork, apples, onions, Pinot Gris — Alsace on a plate
Hello, Reader, Tonight's post is about a pairing that does not need explaining — it just needs tasting. Roasted Pork with Apples and Onions: The Alsatian Pairing for Pinot Gris Roasted pork with apples and onions alongside Alsatian Pinot Gris. Pork fat, caramelized apple, sweet onion, and a wine with smoked stone fruit, candied spice, and enough body to hold its place at the table. They are built from the same landscape. The pairing did not need to be invented. It arrived. The post covers the...
READ POSTTwo posts: the everyday Pinots and the rarest wine in Alsace
Hello, Reader, Two posts on the blog today. One practical, one exceptional. Post 1: Pinot Blanc & Pinot Gris — What to Expect in the Glass The side-by-side guide. Pinot Blanc is light, approachable, gentle — the wine for aperitif service, mild food, any occasion where you want white wine that is pleasant and uncomplicated. Pinot Gris is full-bodied, aromatic, and built for rich food — smoked stone fruit, candied spice, a texture that can almost feel viscous in the glass. They are different...
READ POSTThe $4 cheese that changed how I think about wine
I have a small ask for you this week. The next time you pour a glass of wine, put something on a plate next to it. Cheese. Crackers. Olives. Whatever you have. It doesn't need to be perfect. Then notice what happens. I wrote about why this works on the blog this week — and the short version is that wine was never actually designed to be consumed by itself. When you add food, you're not doing it "right." You're doing it the way wine was built to be enjoyed in the first place. The sensory...
READ POSTThe other Alsatian whites — and the rarest wine in the cellar
Hello, Reader, We stay in Alsace this week. The Other Pinots: Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and the Full Alsatian Picture Last week was Riesling — the grape that defines the region's reputation, the wine that most people mean when they say "Alsace." This week is about what surrounds it: Pinot Blanc, which is quietly the most-drunk white in the region itself, and Pinot Gris, which is richer and spicier and built for a different kind of meal entirely. And at the far end of the spectrum: the...
READ POSTThis is the part most people miss
Hi Reader, Most people don’t realize they’re already noticing patterns in their wine—they just don’t have a way to place them yet. You’ve likely experienced this: A wine that felt balanced one night—and slightly off the next. Sometimes sharper. Sometimes heavier. Sometimes just… not as good. Same bottle. Different experience. That’s not random. It’s how the wine is showing up—and you’ve already been reacting to it. I put something together to make that visible. → Get Your Wine Insight It’s...
READ POSTCoq au Riesling: same bottle, the pot and the table
Hello, Reader, Tonight's post is about a dish — and a principle. VIP Birthday Party I catered with "A Taste of Alsace" The dish is Coq au Riesling: braised chicken in dry Alsatian Riesling with pancetta, leeks, mushrooms, and cream. Served over homemade wide noodles. It is Alsatian cooking at its most direct and its most useful, and it has been on Alsatian tables for a long time. Find the post and the recipes here. The principle is the oldest logic in wine pairing: cook with what grows there,...
READ POSTTwo posts today: sweetness levels and dry Riesling
Hello, Reader, Two posts on the blog today, both on the same grape. Post 1: Dry Riesling — What It Is and Why It Matters What you actually find in the glass: the pale gold color, the citrus and stone-fruit aromatics, the mineral quality that shows up in Riesling grown on schist and granite, and the combination of acidity and body that makes it one of the most useful whites at the dinner table. It also introduces the bottle we're working with this week — a dry Alsatian Riesling, available ....
READ POSTIs your wine making the moment better — or just quieter?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I want to spend it talking about something most wine content skips entirely. → Read: What Role Is Your Glass Actually Playing? Not how to drink less. Not which wines are "healthiest." But something quieter: the difference between wine that makes you more present and wine that helps you check out. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I wrote about it on the blog this week. The question I'm sitting with — and the one I'd love you to consider — is...
READ POSTAlsace: the region between two worlds
Hello, Reader, Something a little different this week. We've spent time in the Rhône and Provence — big, warm southern wines, lavender and garrigue and rosé cold from the fridge. This week we're heading North, to a narrow strip of land between mountains and a river, where the wine is white, dry, and aromatic in a way that takes a moment to adjust to. Alsace. A region that has been French, German, French again, German again — traded back and forth four times since 1870 — and has, in the...
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