Today is International Pinot Noir Day! To celebrate, we present some fun Pinot Noir facts for you today: Pinot Noir means ‘Black Pine Cone’ – ancient vine growers were pretty literal with the naming of this grape as the grape cluster looks like a pine cone, and the…
Only one way to celebrate today, and that is with this guy: Whoops! Wrong guy… This guy: Albariño (or Alvarinho for our Portuguese friends). This botanically aromatic grape has become quite the rage in the wine world in the last few years, largely due to its acidity, friendliness…
Today marks the anniversary of the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, a blind tasting panel that came to be known as the ‘Judgement of Paris’ – more on that in a moment… Briefly (as there’s tons of excellent documentation on this event available anywhere fine wine books are…
Happy International Chardonnay Day! Let’s face it, the world is full of Chardonnay. There isn’t a place on the globe that sells alcohol that it’s hard to find a Chardonnay. That said, not all of them are the greatest, but to each their own, and wine is subjective,…
Algerian wine today is dying, almost dead completely in fact. There is an initiative to try and revitalize the Algerian wine industry, but to date, it hasn’t affected any revitalization or change, yet with time, that might change. This isn’t to say wine is not made in Algeria…
To celebrate World Malbec Day, we thought we’d share some fun facts about Malbec! While we Americans have recently had Malbec become a part of the collective wine connoisseur consciousness, it has actually been popular in Argentina for over a century Malbec was originally used only for blending…
Coat tailing off of our Understanding AOC series and introducing the Off the Beaten Path series this April, we are taking a look at one of the lesser-known regions of France, the Island of Corsica. The simplest way we can generalize Corsica for those unfamiliar with the island…
The Languedoc-Roussillon region of France is a strange crossroads of wine blends, ancient politics, and relatively inexpensive wine for the high quality shopper on a budget. It is even said that the sparkling wines of this region actually predate Champagne (not to mention they are a fraction of…
Ok, no lie, we were holding off on writing about the Loire for as long as possible. What direction should we go? How should we present the information? What is the best way to simplify such diversity? This is not an easy region to generalize. There are some…
Ok, it’s officially the theme for this series. You’ve heard of Burgundy, so we will skip over that part. But as with all facets of the Understanding AOC writings, what is in the bottle!? If it is a red wine, it is Pinot Noir. If it is a…