Wine Flair – Filling Your Glass With Fun

Prohibitionism, Neo-Prohibitionism, and the Three-Tier System: How Did the Wine Industry Get Here?

As wine educators, journalists, marketers, grape growers, winemakers, importers, distributors, retailers, and an entire supporting supply chain, we’re collectively facing what feel like unprecedented headwinds. For the domestic American wine industry, we can add crippling and whipsaw tariffs to the list of recent new challenges, include devastating wildfires; scientifically unsound

May 20, 2025

Thanksgiving Wines for 2024!

Thanksgiving will soon be here, and you’ve probably already decided on your menu. And you’ll want some great wines to go with the big meal. You could always go with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Chardonnay — or try something new? YES! Rosé Wines: Try Mulderbosch Rose, from South Africa,

November 3, 2024

Wine in “Eco-Friendly” Packaging is Coming to You! (UPDATED WITH WINE KEGS)

The rising demand for eco-friendly and sustainable packaging of all types of food, beverages, and consumer products has led to the adoption of alternative packaging options in the wine industry, once almost the exclusive province of 750 ml heavy glass bottles with cork closures. Catering to consumer preferences for convenience,

September 4, 2024

Not Ready For Prime Time? De-Alcoholized “Wine”

The wine industry, broadly, is rightfully concerned–even worried–about the current state of affairs: a glut of bulk wine; too many planted acres; a lower appetite for wine especially among younger adults; and a strong movement toward low- and non-alcohol beverages buttressed by stark warnings from the World Health Organization and

February 17, 2024

Make Second Wines Your First Choice!

So you’re sitting in a lovely, fine-dining restaurant that has an extensive wine list, including pages of selections from France, with a focus on Bordeaux. You’ve always liked French wine, and as you thumb through the list in a leather-bound binder, sitting on a white linen tablecloth, your eyes practically

August 3, 2023

Does New Tech Have Wine Over a Barrel?

When you’re wine shopping in a store, you’ll usually see “shelf talkers,” those little tags that shout out wine ratings and accolades below the bottles, practically begging you to buy a bottle…or a case. If not, you can just check reviews online from, say, Wine Spectator, or even snap a

May 29, 2023

Is Non-Alcohol “Wine” Actually Wine?

Let’s first establish something: wine is the fermented juice of grapes. Sake is not wine. Neither is strawberry “wine.” And if the grape juice isn’t fermented, or vinified, which describes the entire winemaking process, it’s also not wine. But here’s a dilemma: many so-called non-alcohol wines have actually been fermented…but

April 22, 2022

The “Clean Wine” Scam

As new wineries pop up weekly, and online direct-to-consumer (DTC) wine clubs multiply, they’re all looking for a marketing hook. Unfortunately, one that’s increasingly popular is selling their wares as “clean” wines–and it’s misleading and basically a scam. Worse still, many purveyors of “clean” and “natural” wines also often use

August 18, 2021

Featured Wine: Dürnberg Falkenstein Grüner Veltliner 2019

Warm weather is here. Very warm. In fact, unprecedented “heat domes” in June and now well into July, across much of the country. That’s one of the reasons—plus simply on merit—I’m recommending what I think is one of the three most crisp, refreshing, and ideal summer white wines in the

July 25, 2021

Wine of the Week: Left Coast Cellars White Pinot Noir 2019

Wait a minute. Pinot Noir is a red wine grape, so what is this nonsense about a white? Well, in this case, it’s unique, and not, in fact, nonsensical. But it’s a wine that few people have probably tasted, and that’s too bad. What it lacks in color–very slightly straw-hued–it

June 14, 2021

Back to the Futures–In Bordeaux! UPDATED

Most wine drinkers, even real enthusiasts, will never buy wine futures–but, some of us of even modest means will splurge. So what exactly is a “wine future?” Well for starters, it’s just what it says: wine that will be available down the road. Also known as “en primeur,” French for

May 21, 2021

Don’t Let an Algorithm Choose Your Wine

Three years ago, two MIT Grads created an algorithm that promised to choose “wine you love,” based on 18 attributes from a seven-question quiz, and your inputs would “help you branch out and discover new wines without the worry that it will be too sweet, too tart or “too whatever.”

May 18, 2021

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