The Group Chat Nobody Asked For But Everyone Needed If you’ve ever been to an Italian aperitivo and noticed that Prosecco always arrives first, you’ll know exactly what’s coming. Meanwhile, Champagne turns up late with an attitude, and Cava quietly refills everyone’s glass without being asked. In short, this group…
At one point in the 1970s, Soave outsold Chianti in the United States. Not a niche category win. The actual best-selling Italian wine in the country, red or white, full stop. Ask most people about Soave today and you’ll get a shrug. Or a memory of a thin, forgettable white…
Go into any trattoria in the Langhe and order Barolo. What lands in front of you looks less like a wine glass and more like a fishbowl that skipped leg day. Nobody blinks. Ten minutes later you order a Gavi and get something the size of a shot glass wearing…
In 1985, Americans bought 11.5 million cases of a fizzy, sweet, pink-tinged Italian wine called Riunite. That’s still a record. Nobody’s broken it since. For over three decades, it held the title of best-selling imported wine in the United States. Not just from Italy. From anywhere. “Riunite on ice, that’s…
If I asked you where wine was invented, what would you say? France? Italy? Spain?, Maybe Greece? Honestly, those would have been my guesses too. After all, they’re the countries we hear about whenever people talk about great wine. But here’s the part that completely caught me off guard. Wine…
Most wine gets picked, fermented, bottled, and shipped inside a year. Nobody’s money sits around waiting. Barolo doesn’t get that luxury. And it’s not because the producer is being precious about it. It’s the law. Italian regulation requires every bottle labeled Barolo to age a minimum of 38 months before…
Supermarket wine aisles are designed to make you feel stupid. I’m fairly convinced of it. Fifty bottles you can’t pronounce. DOC, DOCG, and IGT stamped everywhere like the wine sat an exam. Gold medal stickers stacked three deep, as if the bottle just came home from the Olympics. Prices ranging…
Millions of Americans knew his face. Almost nobody today knows his name. For decades, one man’s warm, easy grin was the face of one of the biggest wine and brandy brands in the country, splashed across advertisements from coast to coast, in full black robe and white collar, looking every…
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