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
Boken Sake is a new brand of sake, brewed in Japan and designed to be both “innovative and food-friendly.” The brand included four expressions at launch; we received two for review, a Junmai Gingo bottling and a nigori style expression. The sakes are brewed at two different breweries (at least for now). “We launched Boken…
Whitehall Lane is a family-owned winery and vineyard in Napa. I’ve visited it many times over the years since its founding in 1979, but haven’t tasted any of its production in ages — and we’ve never formally reviewed the wines here, either. Today we remedy that with a look at three new bottles from Whitehall’s…
Opolo shipments arrive at Drinkhacker HQ at a healthy clip (in part because Opolo produces dozens of expressions), and we do our best to keep up with them. For this round of wines, we’re looking at the heartiest of the winery’s reds — a quartet comprising merlot, cabernet, and — wait for it — zinfandel.…
Aviv wines are a new line released by Galil Mountain Winery in Yiron, Israel. Aviv means “spring” in Hebrew and is intended, the website explains, to represent “young, fresh, fruity, easy drinking wines designed for enjoying in restaurants.” I’m not sure what makes a wine more suitable to enjoying in a restaurant than at home,…
Last month, we reviewed an Alfrocheiro wine from Portugal’s Tabodella winery, a pleasant and serviceable wine slightly deviating from the common Portuguese offerings. This month, we are trying its Villae offering, which is a red blend consisting of 40% Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), 20% Jaen (Mencia), 20% Tinta Pinheira (Rufete), and 20% Alfrocheiro (Alfrocheiro) grapes. This…
This year’s vintage of Frescobaldi Tenuta Perano Chianti Classico opens with an assertive, tart attack immediately framing its personality. Aromas of Bing cherry and cassis lead the charge, eventually joined by rhubarb for a slightly edgy touch. Hints of orange zest and vanilla lend a bit of gentle softness without sacrificing the wine’s rather large…
Bulichella has an unusual story compared to what you usually hear from Tuscan wine operations. The brand dates back to 1983, the brainchild of Japanese Hideyuki Miyakawa and the woman he met while working in Italy in 1960, Maria Luisa Bassano. Together they started what would become a family winery, now in its third generation…
One of Italy’s best-known white wine producers (though it also produces plenty of reds), Livio Felluga rules the Friuli-Venezia Giulia area in northern Italy, and deservedly so. Today we look at a trio of bottlings from this operation which predates WWI. 2023 Livio Felluga Friulano Friuli Colli Orientali – Friulano grapes give this wine a delightful…
As the weather (barely) starts to cool, we’re looking forward to heartier wines that stick to the ribs. Here’s a pair from our pals at Paso Robles-based Ancient Peaks that could fit the bill. 2021 Ancient Peaks Oyster Ridge Paso Robles – A blend of 69% cabernet sauvignon, 20% cabernet franc, 5% petit verdot, 3%…
Here’s a look at two new wines from Alexana, based in the Dundee Hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Alexana just passed its 20th anniversary, and we’re celebrating with them with coverage of these new releases. 2024 Alexana Rose of Pinot Noir Estate Vineyard – Pretty and floral, with lots of strawberry and a smear of vanilla…