Variety: Nebbiolo
If you like your wines big, bold, and red, Nebbiolo needs to be on your radar. Hailing from Northern Italy’s Piedmont region, this grape is known for producing powerful, full-bodied, and mercilessly tannic wines—all while looking as pale as Pinot Noir! Most famously, it’s the grape that goes into Barolo and Barbaresco, two of the world’s most revered (and more expensive) wines. Though as you’ll soon find out, Nebbiolo is also in a number of more affordable, entry-level styles of wine from Italy and beyond.
Region: Piemonte, Italy
Vintage: 2017
Producer: Marchesi di Gresy
Look:
Intensity - Medium
Color - Purple
Viscosity - Medium/Low
Smell:
Intensity - Medium/Low
Fruit: Black cherry, black currant
Herb/Other: Vanilla, cream
Taste:
Sweetness: Bone Dry
Acidity: Medium/High
Tannin: Medium/High
Alcohol: 11.5-13.5%
Body: Medium/Full
Notes: Raspberry, deep dark fruit, vanilla, sweet ice cream
Winemaker Notes:
Color: Brilliant ruby red medium.
Bouquet: Intense and persistent, fruity, reminiscent of raspberries, plum, sour black cherry, cherry jam.
Taste: Balanced, harmonious, pleasantly tannic with persistent aftertaste.
T&T Rating: 8.5/10
Matt Hranek, founder of the WM Brown Magazine, is the man a renaissance man tries to emulate. The kind of guy who will - with genuine excitement - list off for you the best spots for a martini, burger, or tailor in New York City, Paris, or London, then insist he walk you there himself. But he's also the kind of guy that will take you to his farm in up state New York for a weekend of duck hunting, grilling copious amounts of meat, and antiquing for military jackets, lighters, and watches.
I love following Matt because you can't label him into one specific niche - Niche, it's a restricting word. Why limit oneself like that? - He has a variety of interests and passions, and simply chooses to live his life pursuing and sharing them. That's why he created the WM Brown Magazine. He couldn't find anything that contained more than one of his passions. There are magazines for cars, watches, clothes, fishing, hunting, and travel. But there were few if any publications that crossed over. Therefore, it was need, the mother of invention, who should be credited with the founding of WM Brown. Matt's magazine isn't just watches, or cars, or guns, or clothes, it's all of this, and more. It has a bit of something for everyone. It's a tour of a Beretta factory on one page, followed by a recipe for anchovies and capers pasta (add red pepper flakes!), which is then followed by a page dedicated to sharing with you the joys of shining your shoes with military enthusiasm.
If you're skeptical - which you should be, as I'm suggesting you separate yourself from your hard earned money to buy a paper magazine, of all things - go to his instagram: @wmbrownproject. It's a prequel, a little taste of the magazine's esthetic. Before the magazine, Matt ran a blog for over nine years under the same name. He has it archived on his website. I suggest you go there and check that out too. I always like to see the process how someone got to where they are.
Overall, I'm excited about WM Brown. And I wouldn't recommend it unless I think you would enjoy it too. What I like the most is I don't know what to expect next from it. WM Brown doesn't have to stay in a lane. It has an open road, and it looks bright.
Variety: Reisling
Region: Wachau, Austria
Vintage: 2017
Producer: Rainer Wess
Look:
Intensity - Medium
Color - Straw
Viscosity - Medium/Low
Smell:
Intensity - Medium/Low
Fruit: Citrus
Herb/Other: Floral (Jasmine), White flower, chalk
Taste:
Sweetness: Sweet
Acidity: Low
Tannin: Low
Alcohol: 11.5-13.5%
Body: Medium/Full
Notes: Full; thick, honey butter, ginger, taste like a gear shift below moscato.
Rating: 7.7/10