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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South Africa. What’s better than the accent? The wine. Well, sometimes. At a recent tasting of South African wines I wound my way through plenty of sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, and pinotage (something of a ...
This Mendocino pinot noir has a very light body, but it’s balanced by a little smoke, some nice wood notes, and a jammy finish, giving it more complexity than you might think. A little subdued ...
Who knew there was this much wine in Mendocino? When I strolled into this event 45 minutes before it was set to end, I expected to see maybe a dozen winemakers pouring, not 58 producers, ...
There are monster wine events, and then there is the Grand Tour, Wine Spectator magazine’s celebration of its highest-rated wines and an event of unparalleled opulence. The list of wines being poured — each winery ...
One of the best torrontés (torrontéses? torronti?) I’ve ever had, Acordeón’s torrontés is not just a lovely wine, it’s an amazing bargain, too. The peach and apricot character here is hefty, giving this wine a ...
While the heat inside the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House made this year’s Toast of the Town, a Wine Enthusiast event, a bit of a toasty affair (get it???), a memorable evening of wines ...
What, no jamon? That was the cry of many hoping to find good, semi-bootleg iberico ham at this year’s Spanish Wine Cellar and Pantry event in San Francisco. Sadly, the masses had to make do ...
This newly released merlot needs lots — and I mean lots — of time to open up. Young and incredibly tannic for merlot on first blush, after some breathing room (hours if you can spare ...
White Bordeaux is one of the wine world’s most poorly understood wines. Primarily planted sauvignon blanc and semillon grapes (with some muscadelle here and there), virtually all Bordeaux blanc is a blend, while the whites ...