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Five Bottles: A New Old Way to Evaluate Wine

Meg Houston Maker
Features
6 min read
There is a small fraternity of bottles that have, over the years, ebbed and flowed as my family’s house wine. They’re mostly red—Côtes du Rhône, Vacqueyras, Barbera, Valpolicella—plus a little white and rosé. All are under $20, and even cheaper by the case. These are table wines, drunk with meals

Orange Gateway: An Unexpected Use for Skin-Macerated Whites

Mike Riccetti
Features
4 min read
The Collio appellation, at Italy’s northeastern edge, offers an impressive array of wines.  A number of varieties, both indigenous and French, thrive in its unique, mineral-rich soil and its temperate climate, buttressed by the Alps to the north and the Mediterranean to the south.  Sauvignon, as Sauvignon Blanc is called

Zinfandel: Uniquely and Distinctly American

David White
Features
3 min read
Mention Zinfandel to most wine consumers, and it’s quickly dismissed. It’s easy to see why. For starters, many Americans associate the variety with the cheap, sweet “blush” wines that became popular in the 1980s, like Sutter Home’s white Zinfandel. This style of wine will always have fans, but to my
By Valo at de.wikipedia [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons

Dealcing: How Wineries Put Out Their Fires

Erika Szymanski
Features
9 min read
Alcohol levels in just about everything are rising, and a lot of people aren’t happy about it. Nonetheless, winemakers would really rather you not know that they’re doing something about it. Or, at least, one particular something about it: dealcoholization, or “dealcing.” While there are alcohol-free or very low alcohol

Drink Better in 2013

David White
Features
3 min read
Ask a wine enthusiast to name his favorite value wines, and he'll likely to steer you towards bottles that cost between $15 and $25 each. This makes sense -- many oenophiles think nothing of dropping $25 or more on each bottle of wine. But this ignores market realities. The average