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.
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Based at “an ancient site in the up-and-coming Mont Ventoux wine region of Southern France,” Chene Bleu has been producing estate-grown wines in this Rhone-based region since 2006. Designed to be sustainable, biodynamic, and organic ...
Cutting back on booze a bit — but not too much? Check out New Zealand-based Brancott Estate’s Flight Song, which is “20% lighter in calories,” thanks in large part to a 9% abv. Brancott doesn’t ...
This non-vintage champagne is a blend of 45% Pinot Noir, 33% Chardonnay, and 22% Pinot Meunier. It is a blend of 25 vintages dating back to 1985. Appropriately toasty to start, the wine finds room ...
Champagne Billecart-Salmon’s Brut Nature expression wasn’t quite released when we had our recent tasting with Mathieu Roland-Billecart, so we’re excited to get a look at it on its own. It’s the newest expression in the ...
I suppose one could describe this as a pinot noir for the cabernet lover, if one was being charitable. Intensely fruity, actually quite jammy, the 2019 Belle Glos Pinot Noir Dairyman is inky purple in ...
Codorníu has a tradition of making wine in Spain that dates back to 1551, and they produce a wide range of different cavas. Today we are trying two distinct bottles from their catalogue: a Brut ...
With over 250 indigenous grape varieties, Portugal has the highest density of native grapes of any country in the world. And while Portugal is largely known for its supple Ports and zippy white wines, there ...
This single vineyard pinot from J stands at the top of its impressive lineup, but the wine is surprisingly astringent at first blush, taking quite a bit of time to open up and reveal itself. ...
We’ve written about the Champagnes of Nicolas Feuillatte several times, but here’s a fresh look at two of the operation’s most available bottlings from the “Reserve Exclusive” series — a nonvintage brut and a rose, ...
One look at the light color of this wine and it immediately shows itself as an atypical Barolo. The nose however shows itself as fairly iconic: dense and earthy, with a layer of roasted mushrooms ...