Wine
While wine can be made from many types of fruits and flowers, it is iconically produced from fermented grapes. Wine production dates back at least 8000 years, and today it is produced in quantity in more than 70 countries, with Italy, Spain, France, and the United States the largest producers of wine today. The world of wine is vast and complex, with more than 10,000 grape varietals in existence. This is largely due to experimental cross-breeding and grafting that has taken place for millennia, and such experiments have led to some of today’s most popular grape varieties, including Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. The primary styles of wine today include red, white, and rose. While almost all grape juice itself is white, red wine is made by allowing the juice from black (aka red) grapes to ferment in contact with its skins, while white wine is usually (but not always) made from white grapes. Rose wine is made from black grapes with limited skin contact, which provides the pinkish color.
Top Wine Posts:
Understanding the Wines of France
Wine and Beer Touring in California’s Paso Robles, 2017
Touring and Wine Tasting in California’s Anderson Valley
Harvest in Chile’s Casablanca Valley – A Dusty Paradise
Chateau Montelena’s Dream Tasting: A Retrospective of Five Decades of Wine
Exploring Port Wine: Touring Porto and the Douro Valley
Visiting Tuscany’s Tenuta dell’Ornellaia
Sommsation is a wine shop as well as an experience — an online store which doesn’t just sell you the wines you’re drinking but can also guide you through the tasting process if you’re so inclined. While you can fill up your cart with individual bottles, Sommsation — not “Sommstation,” as I often call it…
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Are temperatures starting to dip in your neck of the woods? While winter still seems to be a far-away dream, the days of daily heat advisories and rolling blackouts seem to be behind us for another year. So let’s celebrate: With one (or more) of these 10 top bottlings that we’ve hand-selected as perfectly paired…
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A viognier from Australia’s Barossa Valley, this presents as a slightly subdued expression of the normally powerfully perfumed wine, its apricot notes buried under a shot of cream, white flowers adding a touch of the garden to a finish that rolls into vanilla and elderflower notes. Simple, but at this price, don’t even blink. B+…
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McPrice Myers isn’t a partnership but rather a person. His first name is McPrice, or “Mac” to his friends. The Paso Robles winemaker has been cranking out wines since 2002, and today he bottles them under a bevy of different labels — but all revolving around Paso-born fruit. We received a sampling of bottles that…
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Peaches and lemons come together — in bright, semi-sweet fashion — in this focused but ultimately summer-centric New Zealand-born wine, laying its floral elements bare after the initial rush of sweetness fades. Connotations of lemonade or white sangria aren’t off-base here, though there are touches of fragrance here — green herbs, possibly some mint —…
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Non-alcoholic wines continue to improve, and we were interested to taste the new releases from Studio Null — not just because I can get totally behind the name, but because they’re legit wines complete with vintage dating. Let’s give these two Euro-sourced wines a try. 2022 Studio Null Gruner Weiss NA – A (vintage!) blend…
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This second label of Far Niente will surprise no afficionado of the Napa cabernet style, plump with notes of currants, backed up by cherry cola notes. Silky chocolate notes evoke a wine that might pair better with a cream pie than a filet mignon, though there’s a gently beefy quality that builds with time in…
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Ammasso is a curious blend of Nero d’Avola, Nerello Mascalese, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, all grown in Sicily in the vineyards of Vinicoltori Contalto. As hearty as any pure-Nero Sicilian wine you’ve probably encountered, this brooding bruiser takes its time to come into focus, letting dark fruit notes of overripe plum, currants, and dark chocolate…
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It is a fun time in the realm of beverage literature. We’ve witnessed a significant shift away from rigid recipe books and academic volumes towards approachable, enlightening works penned by authors deeply devoted to sharing their compelling narratives. Over the past two decades, an abundant collection of relaxed storytelling and entertainment has emerged, covering nearly…
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Made from 100% Nerello Mascalese, this wine from our friends at Planeta presents with a bright, garnet color and a fruit-forward, spice-laced nose. Initially quite earthy on the palate, it takes some time to settle into its groove, letting notes of anise and blackberry slowly emerge, tempered by fruitier notes of spiced red raspberry but…
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