Residual Sugar in Wine

You may have heard the terms Bone Dry, Dry, Off-Dry, Sweet, and Very Sweet as descriptions for wines before.  But what does it mean? In the wine world, sweetness is graded based upon grams per liter of juice, or g/L.  Here is our handy guide to understanding what…

Decoded: Serving Temps

It is well-known and spoken about in the wine community: Americans drink their whites too cold; their reds too warm.  While this is a grossly generalized statement, it exists for a reason.  For example, when you dine out at a restaurant, the white wines are sitting in a…

International Rosé Day!!!

This past June we did a small info piece on Rosé that looked at the 3 methods in which rosé wines are created (contact, saignée, and blending). Rosé sales and importing into the US are at an all time high, and continue to keep growing. In the mediterranean area…

Decoded: Blends

Let’s talk blends, and what the language your local wine shop representative uses actually means. At the top of the blending language list we have Champagne and Bordeaux. The word Champagne is synonymous with being expensive, of quality, for celebrations, and from Champagne, France.  Champagne is generally made…

Decoded: Blending

Blending is essential for all wines.  It can be argued that if it were not for blending by way of cross pollination or grafting of rootstocks most varieties of grapes that wines were originally made from would have gone extinct at this point in time, replaced by a…

Decoded: Oregon Chardonnay

While Chardonnay takes a distant third place in plantings in Oregon (behind Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris), more interest, investment and development has continued to be behind growth and plantings of the grape to develop its market presence and the potential diversity of its stylings.  Oregon Chardonnay runs…

Decoded: Eola-Amity Hills

While we’ve dedicated most of the month to decorating the Pinots from Oregon, Chardonnay is the third most grown grape in the Willamette Valley, and routinely compared to the Chardonnays of Burgundy – which can be credited to Robert Drouhin who “discovered” the potential of Oregon soil in…