You’ve done this. Stood in front of two nearly identical bottles — same region, same grape, same price — except one says Riserva. And you picked the Riserva, because obviously that’s the upgrade. Wine’s version of paying extra for legroom. I did this for years before I actually looked into…
A sweet red from Emilia-Romagna nobody takes seriously. A crisp white with a reputation it can’t shake. A pale, pretty red from a lake, dismissed by critics who like their wine louder. A sparkling wine so light it once didn’t legally qualify as wine in America. A Sicilian red bulk-shipped…
Every write-up of Aglianico eventually says the same thing: it’s the Barolo of the South. I read close to fifteen wine guides while researching this piece, and every single one reached for that exact phrase within the first paragraph. At some point that stops being a description and starts being…
I’ll admit something. For years I thought the stem was there to make the whole thing look fancy. Hold it delicately, take a small sip, nod like you know something. Meanwhile the person next to you is drinking wine out of a coffee mug and having, objectively, a better time….
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…
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….
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