I once had an English professor at UCLA who claimed that the purpose of being an English major was to learn how to write essays about books that you’ve never read. This comment was as cynical as it was correct: I winged way too many midterms on a plot summary and a prayer. Sometimes it [...]

From time to time, I’ve mentioned a few of the “secret handshakes” that can easily distinguish the wine aficionado from the casual drinker. The term “phylloxera” definitely belongs in this category, since few people would ever encounter this word without reading about the history of wine. On the other hand, phylloxera has had such a [...]

I realize that Memorial Day is all about remembering those who served our country, but since I also had the day to go wine tasting, I decided it would be somewhat appropriate to visit a few of the pioneering wineries here in the Napa Valley, in order to sample the current releases from such stalwarts [...]

America’s growing fascination with wine has lead to an increased interest in all sorts of topics that might’ve seemed superfluous years ago. Just consult a set of wine notes for the average Napa Valley winery, and you will discover data relating to everything from barrels to brix, to pH levels, to harvest dates, to clonal [...]

The term “noble rot” has long been a secret handshake among wine connoisseurs, an English translation of the French pourriture noble, or what biologists would officially call “botrytis” (and even more officially, Botrytis cinerea). At its essence, “noble rot” is a benevolent fungus, critical to the production of many of the world’s top late-harvest wines. [...]

In his book “To Cork or Not to Cork,” author George Taber devotes 265 pages to bottle closures, a fact in itself that demonstrates at least one universal truth: that wine aficionados are an odd, yet passionate lot. After all, who else would read an entire book on this particular subject? Even wine guru Karen [...]

In spite of our present fascination with Champagne, it should come as little surprise that one of the region’s most legendary figures, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, remains mostly a mystery. After all, the Champagne region itself has been the source of many wine-related myths and mistruths, perhaps none greater than that of Dom Perignon, the monk [...]

Being a resident of the Napa Valley, picturesque vineyards are part of my daily commute to work. As such, it becomes astonishingly easy to take the local landscape for granted, or even worse, to mindlessly follow the car in front of me, paying little attention to my surroundings. But even as the valley’s lush scenery [...]

Like many of the great books within its genre, Gerald Asher’s “Vineyard Tales” is one part history lesson and one part wine appreciation. Originally published in 1996, “Vineyard Tales” remains an invaluable text, offering plenty of insight regarding wines that span the globe. Along the way, Asher seems to cover most of the interesting American [...]

As the former employee of a BioDynamic winery, I’ve had dozens of opportunities to promote the theories of BioDynamic farming. Unfortunately, the vagaries of BioDynamics are founded upon some very challenging ideas. For this reason, and despite my rhetoric on the subject, I feel that the BioDynamic movement remains largely misunderstood. At worst, BioDynamics is [...]