How to Preserve Leftover Wine
How can you preserve leftover wine if you don't finish the bottle? The best method of preserving wine varies depending on the type of wine and how much is left in the bottle. [more…]
How to Store Wine for the Long Term
If you’ve decided to collect and store wines over the long term, remember that poorly stored wines make disappointment inevitable. To keep wines indefinitely, you really need a wine storage facility with [more…]
Shopping for Wine in Supermarkets
Supermarkets and discount warehouses make wine accessible to everyone. When you shop for wine in supermarkets or discount stores, the mystique surrounding the wine selection process evaporates: Who can [more…]
Shopping for Wine in Specialty Shops
Wine specialty shops are small- to medium-sized stores that sell wine and liquor and, sometimes, wine books, corkscrews, wine glasses, and maybe a few specialty foods. The foods sold in wine shops tend [more…]
How to Choose a Wine Merchant
Sizing up a wine merchant is similar to sizing up any other specialty retailer. The main criteria for picking a wine shop are fair prices, a wide selection, staff expertise, [more…]
Strategies for Wine Shopping
Most wine lovers discover (at least eventually) that wine shopping can be fun. You can assure yourself of more good wine-buying experiences than bad ones by coming to terms with your knowledge — or lack [more…]
Understanding American Wine Labels
Many American wine bottles have two labels. The front label names the wine and grabs your eye as you walk past it. The back label gives you a little more information, ranging from food pairings to other [more…]
Looking at California's Wine Regions
Wine grapes flourish throughout much of California — in wine regions as far north as Mendocino County in the upper third of California, as far west as the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and as far east as [more…]
How to Decipher Labels on European Wines
Wines produced or sold in the European Union (EU) must include some of the same information found on American wine labels. But the EU regulations require additional label items for wines produced in its [more…]
Optional Lingo Often Used on Wine Labels
In addition to the mandatory information included on wine labels (as required by government authorities), all sorts of other words can appear on them. This wine label lingo can be meaningless phrases intended [more…]
The Role of Sulfites in Wine
Sulfur dioxide, a compound formed from sulfur and oxygen, exists naturally in wine as a result of the fermentation process. Winemakers add sulfur dioxide [more…]
What to Expect on a California Winery Tour
When you visit any winery in California, you can be sure of one thing: The scenery will be beautiful. Beyond that, the experience of touring a California winery can differ depending on which region [more…]
Visiting a Wine Tasting Room
After you tour a winery, you usually end up at the wine tasting room. Alternatively, the wine tasting room may be the place you spend all your time during your visit if you prefer not to tour the winery [more…]
Distinguishing Champagne and Sparkling Wines
Champagne is a sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France. Sparkling (bubbly) wines are produced in just about every country that makes wine, and they come in a wide range of tastes, quality levels [more…]
The Grape Varieties of Champagne
In most cases, Champagne is an extremely complex blended wine — not only a blend of grape varieties, but also a blend of wines from vineyards throughout the Champagne region of France. The blend, called [more…]
The Methods of Producing Sparkling Wine
Most sparkling wines go through two fermentations: one to turn the grape juice into still wine without bubbles (that’s called a base wine) and a subsequent one to turn the base wine into bubbly wine. The [more…]
Buying and Serving Champagne and Sparkling Wine
If you’re entertaining with Champagne or sparkling wine, you'll want to know how to best serve bubbly and which foods work well with sparkling wines.
Following is some advice for buying and serving Champagne [more…]
Defining Dessert and Fortified Wines
Dessert wines and fortified wines aren’t mainstream beverages that you want to drink every day. Some dessert and fortified wines are much higher in alcohol than regular wines, and some of them are extremely [more…]
Sherry: A Misunderstood Wine
Sherry is an alcohol-added white wine of true quality and diversity that can be sweet or dry. Sherry-type wines remain undiscovered by most of the world. This helps keep the price of good Sherry attractively [more…]
The Styles of Dry and Sweet Sherry Wines
New styles of Sherry wines occur when the natural course of aging changes the character of a Sherry so that its taste no longer conforms to one of the two main categories [more…]
The Styles of Port Wine
Port is the world’s greatest fortified (alcohol-added) red wine. Port takes its name from the city of Oporto, situated where Portugal's Douro River empties into the Atlantic Ocean. But its vineyards are [more…]
Sweet California Dessert Wines
Sweet wines, also called dessert wines, date back to the earliest days of California wine production. Until the 1960s, dessert wines were more popular nationwide than dry table wines. Today, they represent [more…]
Understanding How Wine is Sold in Restaurants
When you buy a bottle (or glass) of wine in a restaurant, you get to taste it then and there: instant gratification. Choose a wine that pairs well with the food you’ve selected for the best experience. [more…]
How to Read a Wine List
You may dread wading through a restaurant’s wine list, knowing that it can be an ego-deflating experience. There's no need to fear the wine list — with a little guidance and a few tips, you can learn to [more…]
How to Order Wine in a Restaurant
Plan to order the wine at the same time that you order the food in a restaurant — if not sooner; otherwise, you may be sipping water with your first course. If, after sizing up the wine list, you decide [more…]
