Recantina: The grape Napoleon didn’t like

Elisabetta Tosi
Feature Stories
4 min read
November can be quite agreeable in the Veneto countryside – if the temperature remains mild. A few weeks ago I was visiting a winery in the Treviso province, in Nervesa della Battaglia which is a village known for the bloody battle fought here in the First World War between the Italian

The thinned red wine

W. Blake Gray
Features
3 min read
Imagine if I could tell grapegrowers a way to produce more wine from the same vineyard that is also actually better. Happy Thanksgiving winegrowers, I'm here for you! There's another culprit to add to the list of reasons wines are unintentionally getting higher in alcohol: crop-thinning. This revelation comes from

What We’re Drinking – 2013 Shafer One Point Five

David Honig
Wine Reviews
1 min read
Another gorgeous wine from Shafer. The color is deep and dark. Rich fruits explode on the nose, blueberries and blackberries, and a touch of black pepper. On the palate, blackberry, elderberry, dark chocolate and a hint of espresso lead, with highlights of raspberry singing out on the mid-palate. Tannins offer a
Stanko and Saša Radikon, 2014

A personal reflection on Stanko Radikon

Simon J Woolf
Feature Stories
3 min read
With the loss of Stanislao “Stanko” Radikon on September 11th 2016, the wine world lost one of its most dynamic pioneers. The news was announced to the world with a poignant message from his son Saša, on social media: “Tonight I missed a friend and collaborator. But most of all,

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,