Lately, when discussing and learning about wine, I been hearing this buzz word: extraction. What does this mean to the casual wine lover who might immediately visualize somebody pulling teeth when hearing that term? In the wine world, extraction is the process of taking the flavor, color and tannin out of the grape skins during [...]

I took this photo last week while on a Chateau Tour of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It’s harvest time in the south of France and basically all rules and norms go out the window and three weeks of organized chaos sets in. I’m sure this magnum at Domaine de Beaurenard will come in handy as the workers approach [...]

Everyone who loves red wine has at some point or another suffered from the purple tooth syndrome. In other words, red wine leaves you with unattractive stained teeth that is always an embarrassing feature to see in the mirror after a night out. Everyone’s first instinct to remove the stain is, of course, to brush. [...]

Thought to be the oldest branded wine in the United States (dating from circa 1835), Virginia Dare was named after the first child born of English parents in America. The wine was made from a grape called scuppernong, a native variety that is still grown in the South. This white Virginia Dare was originally called Minnehaha. There was [...]

The concept of garage wine has been around since the mid 1990s, when a group called the garagistes in Bordeaux reacted to the traditional style of red Bordeaux wine. The garagistes developed a style more consistent with perceived international wine tastes. Yet, what the garagistes did not reinvent was the packaging of their product. Another [...]