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
This translation of Pascaline Lepeltier’s One Thousand Vines is dense (the original French edition was released in 2022). Every chapter is its own college course part of a larger, self-taught degree in oenology, every sentence is worth re-reading and committing salient details to memory in the event they reappear when explaining concepts deeper into the…
Read More
We always get a kick out of the unique wines coming out of Paso Robles-based Booker, and My Favorite Neighbor is invariably a worthwhile experience. This 2021 cabernet sauvignon is surprisingly light on its feet and ready to go, a stark contrast to the 2018 expression we previously reviewed. Lush notes of cherries and currants…
Read More
Famiglia Pasqua’s wines are always exciting, whether you’re sipping on the luxe Mai Dire Mai Amarone or its more affordable Amarone della Valpollicella. It’s the latter we’re tasting today — the 2013 Amarone, which we reviewed last year, is still the current vintage. For the Valpolicella, we’ve skipped ahead from 2016 to 2018 — note…
Read More
Papapietro Perry doesn’t just have one of the liveliest company names in Sonoma, it also makes some of its best, under-the-radar wines. 2024’s releases include these two wines, both from the Russian River Valley which Pappietro Perry calls home. 2022 Papapietro Perry Chardonnay Peters Vineyard – Russian River Valley chardonnay, on point. Oak and vanilla…
Read More
Justin is back with two new releases from its 2023 vintage, both fruit-forward wines designed for sipping as this long hot summer comes to a close. 2023 Justin Sauvignon Blanc Central Coast – Massively tropical, a contrast to last year’s more restrained wine. The big pineapple rush up front moves into coconut cream in short…
Read More
Tenuta Perano’s Chianti Classico is a wine we’ve covered in numerous incarnations — including this (standard) version and the Riserva bottling. This 2021 expression is firing on cylinders: A biting, tart attack is bursting with cherry fruit but also rhubarb, and plenty of it, though gentle notes of vanilla and orange peel offer a fruity…
Read More
2018 is widely considered the best vintage for Napa cabernet sauvignon since the vaunted 1997 release, which is perhaps why Paul Hobbs was so careful about the timing of this Coombsville bottling, which was kept in the cellar until 2024. Born in one of the coolest parts of Napa County, the wine is made from…
Read More
We’ve visited the wines of Chile’s Ventisquero on many occasions, and today we return to the Colchagua Valley with a look at two recent edition wines from the company. Fun fact: Did you know that Ventisquero Wine0 Estates involves a collaboration between Australian winemaker John Duval and Ventisquero’s head winemaker, Felipe Tosso? This year they…
Read More
Flora Springs may be an old school label — its been around for 45 years — but don’t say this brand can’t learn new tricks. Flora Springs began what it describes as an “evolution” in 2019, selling off its old buildings and transitioning to a smaller winery with a more focused approach to winemaking. With…
Read More
So, interesting story behind this wine. It’s made by our friends at Boisset’s Raymond in Napa Valley, but you can’t buy it there: It’s an exclusive to the Strip House steakhouse, which has locations in New York and Las Vegas. The wine is a 100% cabernet sauvignon “sourced from two adjacent vineyards in the heart…
Read More