Irish spirit

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
4 min read
“Business or pleasure?” asked the garda at Dublin airport immigration control. “ I’m not sure,” I replied. “I’m here to learn about Irish whiskey.” “That can only be pleasure,” he said with a smile as he stamped my passport with a thump. He was right. My tour of Irish whiskey

Master Somm Candidates do battle on Uncorked

Becky Sue Epstein
About
1 min read
What happens when a sommelier spills while decanting an $800 bottle of wine?  Is there actually a correct way to serve wine? Ever wondered how much a restaurant wine director actually knows about wine: how does he or she determined which wine you, personally, will enjoy with your meal? The

Going clear: Appreciating vodka

W. Blake Gray
Features
5 min read
I wasn't always a wine drinker. The first thing I liked to drink was vodka: vodka with cranberry juice, or a Black Russian with a slice of lime. Now, though, I am entirely too hip to drink vodka. I sneer at vodka, and at people who drink vodka. If I

Nikolaihof: The Wrong Side of the Wachau

Simon J Woolf
Feature Stories
4 min read
“This is the new part of the cellar”, says Nikolaus Saahs with a wry smile as we walk around the extraordinary gothic basement of his family's estate - Nikolaihof. It's “only” 400 years old, compared to the rest which dates from the Roman era (c. 1,880 years ago). I can't

Why does wine smell?

Erika Szymanski
Features
6 min read
Why doesn't a glass of water smell like anything? Or a bowl of sugar? And why does a glass of wine smell like so many things? For something to smell like anything, two conditions must be satisfied. One: it must contain volatile molecules. Two: those molecules must trigger olfactory receptors.

Second wines deserve a second look

Roger Morris
Feature Stories
3 min read
It was a great summer for drinking second wines. During Vinexpo in June, there was the vibrant 2014 Fleur de Pédseclaux, sampled from the barrel at the reawakened château’s dazzling new winery in Pauillac, just across the road from the Rothschilds.  Then there was Silvio Nardi’s Rosso di Montalcino at a dinner

Explore Beer Aromas with Hop Blast

Fabian Jauregui
Beer Reviews
2 min read
Perhaps the most vivid memory of my wine training is of repeated olfactory forays into containers stuffed with leather, lavender, grass, beef jerky, etc., in order to discover signature wine aromas and flavors. Though it may be cliche to use the term wine epiphany, I certainly had my fair share

The Mother Vine: Livermore Reconsidered

Joe Roberts
Feature Stories
5 min read
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