Author Joe Roberts

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Joe Roberts
Blogger. Wine-O. Bass Funkifier. Hiney Shaker.

Tasting immortality

Joe Roberts
Features
2
Well over ninety percent of all wines produced are meant to be consumed within a year of their bottling. For the remaining few percent -- which include what most would consider the greatest still wines being produced in the world – how long do they have before they outlive their pleasurable

Heroic Viticulture on the island of Pantelleria

Joe Roberts
Features
4
Even in a wine world where context is king, Donnafugata’s complex sweet wine called Ben Ryé - the product of air-dried Zibbibo (Muscat) grapes - stands out as uniquely tied to its place of origin. Second generation winegrowers Antonio and José Rallo, who helm the Sicilian winery, describe its production

Forward to the Past: the wines of Terre di Pisa

Joe Roberts
Features
0
Utter the word “Tuscany,” and your mind will likely conjure up images of rolling hills, sunny skies, and the dueling monocultures of olive groves and grapevines. And your mind would be right, because most of Tuscany looks exactly like stepping into a painting, photograph, or landscape shot from Under the

Paso Robles: Sorry, not sorry

Joe Roberts
Features
4
“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

Faces of Ruchè

Joe Roberts
Features
3
Piedmont's other red grape comes onto the world market with a new, colorful cast of winemaking characters. This is the first in a two-part series on Ruchè this week on Palate Press. For lovers of obscure wine finds, the sleepy little town Italian town of Grana might be the next destination

The Mother Vine: Livermore Reconsidered

Joe Roberts
Features
6
That California’s Livermore Valley is largely off the radar for wine geeks and collectors is one of the more bizarre turns in the history of U.S. wine. While rarely mentioned in the same breath as Napa Valley, Sonoma County, or Paso Robles, it could easily be argued that no other