This Thanksgiving weekend, half the country is snowed in while the lucky eastern states, where I’m gobble-gobbling, are draped in sunshine. In any weather extreme, serving Golden Bordeaux is an elegant way to end a meal–but they’re a great deal more. Considered a delicacy, these wines were favorites of Europe’s elite for centuries. They’re called “Golden Bordeaux” because…well, look at them. Produced along the Garonne River near the city of Bordeaux, their colors range from pale corn-silk yellow to deep amber. They’re made from white grapes–think Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscadelle, Sauvign ..read more

Today we’re wrapping up Palindrome Week, a 10-day string of dates that read the same forwards and backwards: 9-10-19, 9-11-19, 9-12-19…you get the picture. Although I couldn’t find any wine grapes whose names are palindromes, the quirky dates got me wondering: how did wine grapes get their names, anyway? Was there once a Frenchie named “Monsieur Sauvignon”? Or an Australian cat named Sherlock Shiraz? [“Coronation Grapes” by Amber Fox, courtesy of Flickr] The origins of grape names, it turns out, are logical for the most part, though some are more interesting than others. I found the stories b ..read more

“I’m ready for a new wine experience.” This came from a friend who loves white wine, refuses to even smell my reds, and now she insists that Pinot Grigio, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc all taste the same these days. (They don’t, but I let her go on with her rant.) “Is there another white I’d like?” I had the perfect remedy for her wine boredom. Thanks to the good people at Rías Baixas Wines and wine discovery website Snooth, I had two bottles of Albariño in the fridge, just waiting for me to crack them. This lip-smacking white, called “racy but not sharp” by one reviewer, is produced in the R ..read more

In my view of the universe, red wine works everywhere. Researchers at Harvard Medical School apparently agree with me: they found in a recent study that red wine will keep astronauts’ muscles strong during a Mars mission. Well, sort of. [“Glass of Red,” Matthew Fells, courtesy of Flickr] They didn’t exactly recommend that astronauts get wasted up there. What they said was, our muscles deteriorate in “partial gravity” situations such as on Mars–and if that happened, the astronauts would be too weak to get their ship home to earth. But it turns out that resveratrol, that wonderful anti-aging sub ..read more

It seems to me that people along the Heartland Wine & Ale Trail work entirely too hard: Mark Zdobinski, winemaker at the Olde Schoolhouse Vineyard & Winery in Eaton, Ohio, renovated and rebuilt a falling-down school by himself, brick by brick, into a showcase for his award-winning wines. Adam Melton, former owner of Melton Renzulli Wines in Richmond, Indiana, now owns The Cordial Cork wine bar and is about to start producing wine again in partnership with Wesler Orchard in New Paris, Ohio. (At Melton Renzulli he crafted up to 24 different wines singlehandedly.) Jared Ward, founder of R ..read more

You’ve heard the so-called cardinal rule about dessert wine: “The wine should be sweeter than the dessert.” That’s fine, but do we always have to pair sweet wine with sweet food? No way, say a growing number of dessert-wine producers–who, by the way, have convinced me that a plate of lip-smackin’ salty cheeses and cured meats can be a terrific light dinner, especially paired with a fine Sauternes from the Graves region of Bordeaux. So, the question for wine lovers is, do we want our pairings to match or contrast? For eons, it seems, dessert wines have been served with dessert so they could ma ..read more

When I first visited Healdsburg more than 20 years ago, I wasn’t impressed. I’d been told this hub of Sonoma County’s wine country was a darling village to explore, but the deserted town square was ringed with gas stations, overpriced souvenir shops and biker bars. Nothing personal, biker friends, but it was an easy place to drive past. But on a recent visit, I found a busy town of upscale boutiques, art galleries, James Beard-winning restaurants, and more than 40 wine tasting rooms within a two-block radius of the plaza, now a shaded, beautifully maintained park. [Photo credit: Barbara Bourn ..read more

Put 300 or so wine writers in the same room and you’ll know what people mean when they say, “Everybody’s a critic.” It’s especially true among those who understand what’s in your glass and how it got there. Opinions, interpretations and (sometimes) attitude will swirl about you like a funnel cloud. [Masterclass in Uruguayan Wines, taught by Amanda Barnes, South American wine authority] But we all agree: we’re crazy about wine (that’s why we come together) and we love learning about it. I brought home plenty of new wine knowledge after the 2018 Wine Bloggers Conference (now Wine Media Conferen ..read more

If there’s a perfect antidote to my never-ending POTUS blues, it’s sipping $65 Rioja (“ree-OH-ha”) wines and learning about them from the incomparable Doug Frost, MS, MW. Not only is Frost the funniest, most exuberant wine expert anywhere, he’s also one of only four people on the planet who’s both a Master Sommelier and Master of Wine–making him one smart wine dude. And by Rioja wines, I mean Tempranillo. Like France, Spain sometimes does that annoying label thing where they name the wine according to the region where the wine is produced, not the grapes that go into it. In the case of re ..read more

The cherry blossoms are about to pop in northern Virginia, and I’m looking at the first green grass I’ve seen in six months. We’re sipping Viognier, the state’s signature grape—crisp, fruity and the perfect varietal for welcoming spring—but this bottle is from the other side of the country: Maryhill Winery in Goldendale, Washington. I visited Maryhill, perched above the Columbia River near Mt. Hood, last October after the Wine Media Conference in Walla Walla. At about 8,000 cases of Viognier a year, Maryhill is the state’s biggest producer, though the American Northwest is a latecomer to Viog ..read more