Category: Recent Columns

The past 40 years have been a rollercoaster for chardonnay, the most popular wine in the United States. Continue reading →

You demanded wine options. Winemakers heard you and new options—some might call them marketing gimmicks—are being created as fast as they can be dreamed up. Continue reading →

NEWS FLASH: We are in the “Dog Days of Summer,” or “High Summer” as it was called in the Old South. Whatever you call the scorching time between early July and mid-August, it is time to chill your wines. Continue reading →

If you drink Argentinean wine—who doesn’t, given its high quality and excellent QPR (quality-to-price ratio)—you likely have seen Mendoza on the label. Continue reading →

A standard 750 ml wine bottle contains five 5-ounce pours. What do you do when you drink one or two pours and have left-over wine? Continue reading →

When this wine column began more than 14 years ago, Father’s Day was not a topic. Men drank beer, women drank wine. That was just the way it was. Continue reading →

Wine containers have evolved for thousands of years. Let’s examine. Continue reading →

In the antediluvian 20th century, you likely associated beer with sporting events and athletes. Today, in the bright, shining enlightenment of the 21st century, wine can claim its spot alongside beer as a sports libation. Beer guzzlers would demure—likely with a belch—but they would be wrong. Continue reading →

The classic formula for wine tasting is the “five Ss.” See. Swirl. Sniff/smell. Sip. Savor. Let’s explore swirl. Continue reading →

Almost all the wine we drink is made from various varieties of Vitis vinifera, a grape native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia. There are more than 10,000 varieties of this genus of grape. Continue reading →