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Don’t Napa my Fredericksburg: Can Texas wineries stay affordable?
The Californication will continue until morale improves! Yes, it’s true: Tech and finance dollars–combined with voracious agrotourism–are coming for Texas’s wine industry. The great relocation of California residents to Texas has kept up its pace, remaining the largest state-to-state migration pattern every single year since 2020. We’re all feeling anxious about it. “Don’t California My…
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Book Review: Oz Clarke’s Story of Wine (2024)
Think about the first wine you ever tasted. Can you remember the flavors, the label, the people who were with you? Place the bottle, in memory, on the left-hand side of a vastly wide, hypothetical shelf. Now think of your most recent wine–the one that’s still open in your fridge, or whose empty bottle may…
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“Flabby,” “smooth,” “precise”? These 7 wine words are past their prime
When I read too many wine reviews, I feel like I’m getting smarter and dumber at the same time. On the one hand, I’m learning to talk about wine like the pros do! On the other hand, I’m ingesting a florid word salad that leaves me even more confused about what’s in the bottle. In…
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Molto carino! These 11 Italian grape varieties are named after animals
The Italian language has a rich tradition of nicknames. Not just for people, to help distinguish one Giovanni from another–but for animals, places, and plants, including grapes. The names of some grape varieties reach back to Roman times, when viticulture was in its infancy. Farmers needed a way to differentiate grapes by their flavor, yield,…
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Roman wine-making villa unearthed in Spain! But what was the wine like?
Exciting archaeological news for wine-lovers who frequently think about the Roman empire: A large wine-making villa has been unearthed at Sant Gregori villa near the coastal town of Burriana, Spain. Archaeology Magazine reports that the four-acre site is complete with all the facilities required to grow, ferment, and store grapes and wine. There are even…