(This article was originally published in 2012.  Much of it is still relevant.) Wine is produced in various levels of quality, from simple, one-dimensional quaffs to world-class collectibles. Wines of very good to excellent quality typically distinguish themselves—whether they are red or white, dessert or bubbly—by a unique characteristic that wine enthusiasts know as complexity. Any item which is complex in nature, whether it be Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Monet’s Femmes au Jardin or an aged Grand Cru Red Bordeaux, has central to its nature a variety of unique a ..read more

 Why did that wine seize my attention? This article appeared here in 2018, but its advice is still relevant today. I’m sure you’ve experienced it as well, but there are times when a wine, something out of the ordinary, turns my head and grabs my attention. It can occur with just about any wine. Red or white, newly released or cellar aged, New World or Old World. The color, aroma and flavor may be representative, but there usually is something else “going on,” something more complex and interesting, something that teases my taste buds and palate, that nags at me to find out why ..read more

The following  first appeared in 2021.  The principles are still valid  One +of my first wine buddies characterized the pleasures of wine appreciation as a pursuit.  There are different levels in that quest, and for many it ceases at “It tastes good!”  Today’s article encourages you to go a few steps further to find out why.   Learn the grape. The most important determinant of the way a wine looks, smells, tastes and feels is the underlying grape from which it is made.  Each has its own level and style of aroma, acidity, tannins, d ..read more

As a longtime Rosé aficionado, I never expected the pink stuff would be as widely accepted as it currently is. Two recent experiences made this quite clear. The first, was at Napa’s Whole Food Market, where I noted there were more than fifty different producers on the shelves, from both foreign and domestic. Secondly, after that attention-getter, I browsed Wine.com, one of the more thorough Internet sources for wines of all types and provenance, to see what was currently available. You may not be surprised, but I was; there were 450 Rosés listed.  As you might expect, most of the offering ..read more

In my previous post I described various roadmap markers encountered while travelling the circuitous and open-ended road of Wine Appreciation.  The starting point was understanding a wine’s primary structural aspects, its building blocks, (acidity, sweetness, alcohol and tannins), and how those, in turn, are determined by the underlying grapes from which it is made. This was crucial inasmuch as American and most New World wines are primarily labelled and distinguished by the underlying grape. But that information was of limited assistance when I tried to understand how European wines iden ..read more

When I first decided to pursue the pleasures of Wine Appreciation, it became apparent that it was far more complex than one friend’s advice, which was as simple as ABC: “Always Buy Cabernet, Always Buy Chardonnay.” (He was serious.) And while a number of wine drinkers I’m chummy with are still in that paradigm, I found it too confining, too generic, and not the least bit fulfilling. But I needed a roadmap, something to guide me on how to better understand wine.  The first route was sorting out and comprehending each of wine’s underlying components—acidity, sweetness, body (alcohol) and t ..read more

One of the vinous offramps I took a few years ago was to expand the depth and breadth of my wine appreciation; more specifically, to explore, and discover, more wines than were in my usual buying/drinking/cellaring routine.  I also nagged those of you who were readers at the time, to enlarge the scope of your wine enjoyment by introducing (and even challenging) your palate with new types and styles.  Coincidental with that, was my decision 1) to be far more deliberate in my tasting assessments, and 2) to keep a record of them via Instagram posts. Once registered, I began following ..read more

  I first posted this article in 2010, and those of you who were on the mailing list may recall it.  It triggered many comments and memories.  For you, and new readers as well, here's to fond recollections: As a youngster, my siblings and I lived in a small town in the coal mining region of southeastern Utah. Our nightly entertainment was radio programs like The Shadow, The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. We also read books, solved 500 piece jigsaw puzzles, and played Gin Rummy. On Saturday afternoon, we wolfed down freshly, buttered popcorn while trans ..read more

Depending on how long you’ve been swirling and spilling, there are times when you have to deal with advice offered in a wine tasting class. You can accept it as truth, reject it as myth, or wait until you have confirmation of either. Of course, I jest in the first sentence above about spilling. But I did, in fact, reject a class moderator’s claim that if you weren’t spilling it on yourself or elsewhere, then you weren’t aggressive enough, and would never unleash those otherworldly, underlying aromas and flavors.  And I also must acknowledge that I have stained fine wooden table tops, bap ..read more

While swirling, sniffing, and sipping, I'm typically on the lookout for a few positive qualities. But I wonder if you possibly share my priorities?  For example, what quality or characteristic is most important when you’re enjoying or otherwise attentively tasting a wine? If you’re thinking “smooth” or “tastes good,” you are likely a newbie or a wine drinker who is not particularly "into wine"; that is, one who feels that wine is simply a beverage, nothing special, and definitely not an aesthetic object; and one who typically stays in his/her comfort zone by purchasing the same few wines ..read more