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
We’ve tried and enjoyed Trapiche offerings in the past, but not everything this Mendoza, Argentina-based vineyard has to offer. This is our first experience with its Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as with its Oak Cask Malbec. 2020 Trapiche Oak Cask Malbec – A rather burly affair, even after time in the glass lets matters settle.…
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If you’re like me, you probably know Bryn Mawr as a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. Turns out it’s also a winery in Oregon. I always assumed Bryn Mawr was a person, but it’s actually a Welsh phrase that roughly translates to “high hill.” There’s no connection between the college and this winemaking operation, from…
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Jules Taylor is based in New Zealand’s Marlborough region, where the winemaker produces a series of eponymous, affordable bottlings. She was named New Zealand Winemaker of the Year for 2021. Let’s dig in to this trio of bottlings, all newly released. 2021 Jules Taylor Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough – Sauvignon blanc is Taylor’s specialty, and with…
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Salentein has just released new vintages of its wines grown in the Uco Valley of Mendoza, Argentina. Today we get to try them alongside two wines from the Pyros label, which are also produced by Salentein but are made with Malbec grapes grown in the Pedernal Valley in San Juan. Let’s give them a try.…
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Dow’s latest LBV Port offering offers nothing in the way of surprises, presenting a fully expected rendition of Port at its most easygoing and approachable. Jammy, with notes of fresh, plump raisins and a slurry of milk chocolate, it’s a blunt but exuberant offering that finishes with a lightly syrupy texture that hints at oxidation.…
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Metz Road is another label from Scheid Family Wines, a prolific producer in California. This pinot bottling hails from the sustainably farmed Riverview Vineyard in Monterey. This pinot noir could easily be mistaken for a Russian River bottling, thicker with black fruit than red, a bit gummy with notes of rhubarb and some licorice in…
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Alamitos is a Portuguese-influenced winery located at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Bay Area’s Santa Clara Valley. It’s a relatively obscure AVA, although considering its best-known resident is Ridge, there’s clearly some exceptional quality to be had here. Alamitos sent us three of its recent releases for consideration. Thoughts follow. 2020…
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The Prisoner Wine Co. has greatly expanded its offerings beyond its namesake wines in recent years, including Saldo, which has the most minimalist label around — in a good way. Complicating things — there are two Saldos. One is a zinfandel (red label), and then there’s this red blend (blue label), a mix of Petite…
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Patrimony is something of a super-label from the Daou family, one of the more widely known estates in the Paso Robles region. This cabernet franc — one of only three wines under the Patrimony label — hails from the Adelaida District, a mountainous region where grapes are grown between 1700 and 2200 feet in elevation,…
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This is our second vintage of VDR — Very Dark Red — to review, the first being 2018’s release of this Monterey County blend, predominantly petite sirah and petit verdot — designed to give this an intensity of color that merits its name. To that end, VDR gets things right, its bold notes of extracted…
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