Napa’s Vanishing Varietals

Roger Morris
Feature Stories
6 min read
It isn’t difficult to imagine that a visitor to a Napa Valley tasting room in the late 1970s would see a much different world than exists today. There would no traffic jams along Highway 29, and no crowds queuing up waiting for winery doors to open.  Walk inside, and the

Live to 100 by Drinking this ONE Red Wine

Becky Sue Epstein
Features
3 min read
For a few days this October I was invited to visit Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, a couple hundred miles southwest of the Roman coast. In Sardinia, scientists are now studying Cannonau, a native red wine, believing it could be a major reason why this part of

Terraced Vineyards in Jeopardy

Elisabetta Tosi
Feature Stories
4 min read
Let’s play a game: let’s imagine the steep, dramatic Douro vineyards of Portugal are completely smooth. Imagine the hostile, rocky landscape of the island of Pantelleria: totally flat. Or the undulating countryside of Cinque Terre (Italy) or the mountainous Lavaux (Switzerland). Do you see what I mean? In this imaginary

Prosecco Progress

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
3 min read
It’s lunchtime at the San Simone winery – a homey spread of cheesy mushroom and spinach pastas – and the Brisotto sisters, fourth-generation vintners, are explaining the everyday appeal of Prosecco. A good bottle, they say, is like a good pair of jeans, fuss-free style that goes with everything. True enough,
two artisan gins plus Gordon's dry

A decade is a long time in gin

Simon J Woolf
Features
3 min read
First came the craft beer revolution – taking the USA from a mere 92 breweries in 1980, to the current total of almost 2,400. Then came organic, biodynamic and natural wine, niche movements that are nonetheless now shifting millions of dollars worth of wine around the globe. But natural wine has long since been

Paso Robles: Sorry, not sorry

Joe Roberts
Features
5 min read
“It’s… outsized. We get big tannins, big fruit, big acid, and big extraction.” That’s how Calcareous Vineyards winemaker Jason Joyce describes the types of wines that the Paso Robles region is naturally calibrated to produce. Even by New World wine standards, Paso Robles has climate conditions that some might consider