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
They make wine in every state in the U.S. — and a lot of the stuff that comes from unexpected places is pretty good. Case in point: At least one of these wines from Aridus, which got its start in 2012 in Arizona (though some grapes come from New Mexico next door). Let’s check out…
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It is an exciting time for fans of Italian sparkling wine with great new varieties finding their way to American shores. Today we are trying Trentodoc. This sparkling wine comes from the mountainous Trento region of northern Italy and is made in the traditional method, like Champagne, with secondary fermentation taking place in the bottle.…
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Castello del Terriccio can be found in Tuscany’s Maremma region, where it specializes in so-called Super Tuscan wines, including its luxe Lupicaia and the more affordable Tassinaia, a blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, reviewed here. A beauty of a wine, Tassinaia is intense with notes of graphite and slate, but balanced with darker fruit notes…
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Two new releases, both bottled from estate fruit, from the always reliable Chalk Hill. Let’s get to work: 2019 Chalk Hill Estate Chardonnay Chalk Hill AVA – We last saw this wine during a visit to Chalk Hill’s winery, where it showed just as beautifully as it does today. Apple and vanilla, with a big…
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Mondavi is one of the few family dynasties synonymous with modern winemaking. Now in its fourth generation of family members in the business, CK Mondavi is celebrating Mondavi’s 75th anniversary with a branding refresh: new labels designed with temperature-sensitive inks to let one know when white wines are properly chilled. 2020 CK Mondavi and Family…
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It’s a bit of a double nightmare for wine drinkers of a certain pedigree: an alcohol-free wine arriving in a can. With the rumored forthcoming glass bottle shortage and supply chain issues, plus more people opting to no longer partake in traditional wine, it would be unsurprising if there was a market shift in favor…
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We recently tried Argentina’s Domaine Bousquet Charmat Brut Rosé, and today we swing around to try Domaine Bousquet Charmat Brut. This wine is the mirror image of the former, with the rosé sparkler being 75% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay the regular brut reversing those proportions. Pale straw in color, this sparkling wine has a…
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Chile’s Veramonte has numerous sub-labels, including Ritual and Primus, all of which we have reviewed extensively in the past. Today we look at a bottling from each of these brands, all of which are made with 100% organic ingredients. Let’s dive in. 2019 Veramonte Cabernet Sauvignon – Organic or not, this is cheap cab, underdeveloped…
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Alto Adige is Italy’s northernmost wine region, bordering the Austrian alps on their southern side. The wines here are predominately white, yet there is a significant red wine production as well. Wines from the Alto Adige region usually have high acidity levels, resulting from grapes grown in vineyards of 1500 meters altitude and up. The…
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We’ve long been fans of Paso Robles’ Justin Winery, so naturally we jumped at the chance to join a wine and chocolate truffle tasting the winery recently organized. Three of its most popular wines were tasted along with five different truffles, which are made on site and are sold and served at the winery’s restaurant…
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