Hello and welcome to my weekly dig through the pile of wine samples that show up asking to be tasted. I’m pleased to bring you the latest installment of Vinography Unboxed, where I highlight some of the better bottles that have crossed my doorstep recently. I’ve got an eclectic group of wines to recommend this week from exotic locales like Australia and New Jersey. Yes, they do make wine in New Jersey. Let’s start with Australia, though, and some wines from a region that many people are unfamiliar with, the Grampians. Located in western Victoria (the wine region in southeastern Australia that ..read more

Once an underwater volcano, the tiny hill of Somló in Hungary is home to some of the world’s most compelling volcanic wines, some made with the appellation’s indigenous grape Juhfark. This view of the hill in spring shows the many small huts that are used on weekends, holidays, and when work needs to get done by winemakers who almost all live elsewhere. Most of the huts are quite primitive, without electricity and sometimes without running water, but they provide a shady place to rest or gather with the family and enjoy views of the surrounding countryside. INSTRUCTIONS: Download this image by ..read more

Hello and welcome to my weekly roundup of the wine stories that I find of interest on the web. I post them to my magazine on Flipboard, but for those of you who aren’t Flipboard-inclined, here’s everything I’ve strained out of the wine-related muck for the week. The “Golden Rule”: Communicating Stories of Old Vines Old Vine Hero Randy Caparoso gets interviewed. A drink with… Michele Faro An ambassador for quality on Etna. How Arianna Occhipinti Won Over the Wine World Something of a paen. Making the Connection: Women In Wine Symposium at U.C. Davis Showcases Role Models and Networking Pam ..read more

Few people know that Japan makes fine wine from grapes, and fewer still know that it essentially has an indigenous grape to call its own. Koshu is the offspring of a long-forgotten vitis vinifera grape and an Asian grape. The crossing happened hundreds of (perhaps more than 1000) years ago, after grapes made their way along the Silk Road through China and then to Japan. The grape found its home in the Yamanashi Prefecture in the foothills of Mount Fuji, and it has been there ever since, where some Japanese wineries have been operating uninterrupted since the late 1800s. Koshu is a large, pink ..read more

If you had to ask me to describe my ideal walk-around wine tasting experience, I would say it would take place outdoors on a lawn in a gorgeous setting, mostly in the shade, with excellent wines being poured by the people who made them, accompanied by excellent tidbits of cheese and bread and charcuterie. That pretty much exactly describes the annual tasting put on by the Napa Wine Library Association. This association, which exists to maintain a truly excellent selection of books on wine for the Napa community, counts many winemakers amongst its members, and as a fundraiser (and frankly ..read more

Sicily is a special place for many reasons, with wonderful wines deeply rooted in traditions stretching back millennia. For many hundreds of years, the traditional winemaking method in Sicily involved using a palmento — a purpose-built winemaking facility. The traditional palmento consists of stone or concrete basins in which the wine was crushed and fermented, along with an integrated ancient wooden wine press. Unfortunately, making wine the traditional way in palmentos is now illegal, as the government believes they can’t guarantee hygiene, but many producers have chosen to preserve or resto ..read more

Anyone lucky enough to have been to an island paradise knows just how special it feels. There’s a certain quality of light, the sensation of warm sea breezes on the face, and scents of flowers in the air. Time can seem to slow down a bit, encouraging us to just lie back in that hammock and doze the day away. In the context of island paradises, we’re far more predisposed to imagine tropical drinks with paper umbrellas in them than we are to think about wine, but truthfully, some of the world’s most interesting, compelling, and uniquely delicious wines in the world come from islands. Wines grown ..read more

As popular as Napa wines are, the chances to taste a bunch of them in a single setting are rare. And when it comes to the individual appellations or AVAs of Napa, the opportunity to dive deep on the wines of a single AVA are very few and far between. That’s why you Napa wine lovers may be interested in the upcoming Calistoga Wine & Food Experience, which features 29 different wineries from the Calistoga AVA pouring their wines accompanied by small plates from a number of different Napa restaurants and food purveyors. Held at the gorgeous Four Seasons Resort in Calistoga, the event promises ..read more

Livermore Valley sits just under 50 miles (80 km) east of downtown San Francisco. This modest valley, oriented east-west, was one of California’s most historic winegrowing areas but is today much less visible thanks to the long shadows cast by better-known Napa and Sonoma. Around 1885, however, Livermore would have likely been the wine country destination of choice for wealthy San Franciscans looking to pay a visit to a vineyard and purchase some wine, with its dozens of wineries and thousands of acres of wine grapes.  Livermore has only recently surpassed its vineyard acreage at the heig ..read more

Hello and welcome to my weekly roundup of the wine stories that I find of interest on the web. I post them to my magazine on Flipboard, but for those of you who aren’t Flipboard-inclined, here’s everything I’ve strained out of the wine-related muck for the week. How Neo-Prohibitionists Came to Shape Alcohol Policy This is by far the most important thing to read this week. The Fight Over Moderate Drinking: Why Studies on Effects are Unlikely to Happen A follow up and related article. How Winemakers Are Reducing Carbon Emissions While Improving Flavor Regenerative Organic. Why New York Rest ..read more