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Happy Beaujolais Nouveau Day! Here’s eight fun facts to pair with a glass of Beaujolais
While you’re busy shopping for cranberry sauce and turkey and pie, it’s easy to overlook November’s other foodie holiday. That’s right–tomorrow is Beaujolais Nouveau day! Beaujolais Nouveau is released on the third Thursday in November, exactly one week before Thanksgiving Day. It’s an unofficial beginning to the festive season, and a great excuse to cut…
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Celebrating Wines of Hungary with Günzer Estate Winery
A rare opportunity to taste the wines of Hungary popped up on the calendar this past week. So we hustled over to Total Wine in East Plano for a joint presentation by Thomas Hoeber (of Dallas-based importer Aqueous Spirits) and Norman Günzer (of Villány’s Günzer Estate Winery). Hungarian wines have a long and illustrious history.…
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What Is This Thing? El Tuerto Tempranillo Blanco Rioja (2022)
Driven by curiosity (and captive to novelty), it’s time for us to uncork another strange little wine bottle: A white Tempranillo from Rioja. White Tempranillo? Yeah, that’s right. Like Pinot Noir and Grenache before it, the premier black grape of Spain has lately spawned an albino cousin. (Yes, I know that productive vines can’t technically…
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Can you buy wine on Sundays? And other Texas drinking questions, answered
Texas has some old liquor laws that are just plain weird. If you’ve lived here a while, you’ve probably already encountered them. If you just moved to Texas, welcome! I hope you enjoy the BBQ and the free chips and salsa. Also, please stop honking your car horn at red lights. We don’t do that…
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Sherry, spice, and everything nice: The stories behind 3 historic wine cocktails
Do you like wine cocktails? How about wine cocktails with a dash of history? Today, we’re presenting a trio of time-tested drinks from the annals of booze-dom: Hot spiced Mosel wine (Roman period), old-school Spanish Sangria (1964), and the simple, delicious Sherry Cobbler (Victorian era). Each recipe has a little morsel of food-history trivia to…
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The anonymous wit and wisdom of Reddit’s winos
Everything I know about wine, I learned while scrolling Reddit on the can. Well, not everything–but a lot of it. Reddit reminds me of what I loved (and currently miss) about Internet 1.0. Militantly anonymous and mostly non-commercial, its millions of forums are a messy, ad hoc encyclopedia of the known universe. Nary an influencer…
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Forget groceries–let’s go wine tasting at the Whole Foods bar
If you crave the surreal experience of getting tipsy in the meat department of a grocery store, then have I got the recommendation for you: The Whole Foods Market taproom. Grocery store taprooms are not a new idea. Whole Foods opened their first in-store bar in 2009 and have them in many of their roughly…
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Awesome Assyrtiko: 7 reasons to love this great Greek grape
Assyrtiko is having a moment–and for fans of aromatic, mineral-driven white wine, that’s great news. As fresh and food-friendly as Sauvignon Blanc but with a character all its own, Assyrtiko is native to Greece. It’s grown in other parts of the Mediterranean–including Lebanon– and has even spread to the New World. Assyrtiko is simply delicious,…
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Texas wine travel guide: The Red River Valley Wine Trail
Once snubbed by discerning drinkers, Texas wines are starting to get serious attention. The two best-known regions are the Hill Country (which gets the biggest share of the wine tourism) and the High Plains (which grows most of the grapes). But did you know that Texas actually has 19 recognized wine trails? From the Gulf…
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Rare European fruits: A wine taster’s guide
Aren’t tasting notes wild? When you write a tasting note, you’re fumbling toward objectivity–or at least toward clearly communicating a subjective experience. Sometimes, wine writers gussy up our impressions with science talk: This wine has high levels of pyrazines, this one has 9 grams of residual sugar, blah blah blah. But still, deep down, lies…
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Review: L’Enclos de Carbonnieux Pessac-Léognan Blanc (2021)
Late January is the worst. The Yule tree is put away, and yet it’s still below freezing and gray outside. I find myself daydreaming about springtime and picnics. And with them, picnic wines. In the Wine Fairy’s household, a picnic wine is something crisp and aromatic. Buzz-inducing, but not so high in alcohol that you…
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Llano Estacado acquired, plans expansions in Lubbock and Fredericksburg
Llano Estacado Winery is staking out new territory, according to a press release from January 14, 2025. Texas’s largest premium winery was recently purchased by a group of investors with big plans. Currently, Llano Estacado has just one public location: A tasting room in Lubbock, Texas that also includes a 200-person event center. The planned…