Most wine lovers are familiar with the more famous wine regions of New Zealand. Indeed, such regions are populated by dozens or even hundreds of producers giving drinkers ample opportunity to sample the region’s wares. But there is one tiny wine region in New Zealand that is basically being kept alive by a single producer (down from a count of 2 since 2022). The Gisborne region, north of Hawke’s Bay on New Zealand’s North Island is a forgotten viticultural center. Other forms of agriculture gradually squeezed out most grapes. But James Millton of Millton Vineyards, a pioneer of biodynamics, co ..read more

Some of you know I’ve got a thing for old vines. They’re living sculptures, artifacts of culture and history, repositories of precious genetic heritage, and they can make some damn good wines that can have more complexity, finesse, and balance than young vines planted in exactly the same place. I spend some of my free time cataloging old vine vineyards for the Old Vine Registry, which I helped design and launch last year. But that’s only one of many old vine projects around the world. California has a special old vine organization called the Historic Vineyard Society. It was started in 2011 wi ..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. Restaurant in Italy offers free bottles of wine to customers who hand in phones Love this. Sober times for China’s wine sellers Change and adapt California wine’s most unlikely celebrity: an Italian with a chainsaw Marco Simonit is having a moment. Wine growers ‘on tip of Africa’ race to adapt to climate change And everywhere else ..read more

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