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…
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…
Here’s an experiment for your next trip to the wine shop. Pick up two bottles that look roughly the same size and shape. Turn them both upside down. If one has a deeper dent in the bottom than the other, you are, in a very literal sense, holding less wine….
Try this the next time you’re at a wine bar. Order two glasses — one big, boozy red, one light, crisp white — and swirl them side by side. Watch closely. One will throw slow, heavy streaks down the glass like it’s confessing something. The other barely leaves a mark….
You know the moment. You’re two turns into the corkscrew, everyone’s watching, and the cork snaps in half. Now you’re not opening a bottle of wine. You’re performing minor surgery on a bottle of wine, fishing bits of cork out with the end of the screw while trying to look…
Pick up a bottle of wine from Italy, then one from Argentina, then one from South Africa. Different grapes, different climates, different languages on the label. And yet every single one holds exactly 750ml. Not 700. Not a clean, sensible litre. Just 750, over and over, no matter which side…
I’ve watched more than one dinner guest here in Veneto confidently order “the extra dry one” thinking they’re being sophisticated, only to take a sip and get a face full of pear and honey instead of the crisp, savage dryness they were expecting. I don’t blame them. I made the…
You’ve been looking forward to this holiday for months. You finally settle into your seat, buckle up, and hear the words every traveller loves: “Can I get you something to drink?” You don’t hesitate. “A glass of red wine, please.” The first sip arrives. And… It’s a bit disappointing. The…
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