HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
The red wines of Spain’s Rioja region lope along from strength to strength, gaining steadily in repute as the years pass. The blancos—whites—are not yet as well known as their carmine cousins. In fact, as one writer observes, Rioja is so famous for its reds that “many people remain completely unaware that the region also produces white wines.” What a shame.
A DRAMATIC COMEBACK
The century-old warehouse glows in the cool spring night, its fresh stucco, dark French doors, gas lanterns and weathered stone steps inviting you in. It is a happy sight to see this property in Charleston’s historic City Market alive again with soft lights, music and hungry folks.
A CULINARY LEGACY
Like many major cities on the culinary map, Charleston enjoys an increasingly well-rounded assortment of cuisines and trendy restaurant motifs to match. But how many food-forward towns can boast an eatery quite like 82 Queen, where history and cuisine meet in the intimacy of a Southern antebellum home? Here, a pair of 18thcentury properties, linked by ancient brick paths, lend genteel profiles to a restaurant that has served loyal guests for over 30 years.
TENUTA DI CAPEZZANA
It must have been a splendid wedding—the union of Caterina Maria Romola di Lorenzo de’ Medici, the pride of the Medici clan, with Henri de Valois, Duke of Orléans, second in line to the French throne. The bride’s uncle, bearded Pope Clement VII, traveled to Marseilles to conduct the marriage ceremony in the Église Saint-Ferréol les Augustins on 28 October 1533.
ALWAYS A CLASSIC
For those of you who remember the early days of the Charleston “food scene,” you’ll recall that fine dining options were few and far between. I am thinking of the mid-1980s, moments before Hurricane Hugo slammed into this coastal city and changed its landscape forever.
THREE FACES OF FURMINT
Nobody quite knows where the Furmint grape originated. A white varietal, it is cultivated today under various names in eastern parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire— especially in Hungary near the town of Tokaj, about 120 miles northeast of Budapest (almost to Slovakia and Ukraine).
RISING STAR
It was a good day for all the food-obsessed folks residing East of the Cooper when Dianne and Cecil Crowley changed their minds about retiring. Over the next two decades, the couple amassed a string of successful eateries in the Southeast and opened the latest in their cadre of businesses: the spanking new Tavern & Table on popular Shem Creek.
WHEN THE LIVIN’ IS EASY
One thing we know for sure: Vinho Verde wines are not green—citrine, pink or red they may be, but never green.
THE RIGHT MIX
When a restaurant has dominated a corner overlooking two of Charleston’s busiest streets for nearly two decades, it’s doing something right.
RENAISSANCE
It may well have been the Phoenicians who first grew wine in Sicily. The ancient mariners founded colonies in the western part of the island as early as 1000 B.C.—including what became the cities of Marsala and Palermo.
