So you finally get on allocations lists for two of your favorite California wineries, but when your wine options arrive, you discover that you don’t love every wine on the list. What do you do? This exact situation happened to a Chowhound forum writer, who says that he signed up for Rhys’ and Dirty &…
This past summer, I was fortunate enough to attend a wine event offering samples of some incredible Rhône wines, including a number of Syrah vintages. As one might expect, most of the wines that I tried were heavy in new oak flavors, brimming with intense earthiness. While these wines were delicious, by the end of…
As a collector, how do you find the bottles that you know are going to taste amazing and gain value on the secondary market? The best way to make this happen is to learn all you can about wine. Like a Master Sommelier, you should know how to pick out the best wines in a…
In an opinion piece for Wine Spectator, wine writer Matt Kramer said, regarding wine certification, “Nothing about wine or — dare I say it! — accomplished wine service requires this pseudo-professionalization.” Kramer explains that wine certifications are as useless as they are elitist, and that too many professionals put emphasis on formal education over real…
In her hugely-popular self-help book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo gives readers tips on organizing every room in their homes. Yet this book goes beyond messy closets and stuffed kitchen cabinets. Did you know that you can apply many of Kondo’s principles when you organize…
Picture your ideal Napa Valley wine cellar, filled to the ceiling with priceless bottles from your favorite cult wineries, from Scarecrow to Sine Qua Non to Screaming Eagle. One early morning, you’re startled awake by a massive earthquake; later, when you open the door to check on your cellar, you find that nearly every bottle…
A couple of years ago, I attended a huge summer tasting event at a Washington winery with two friends. One of my friends brought along a wheeled wine carrier, tucking each new bottle he bought into its own little cubby inside. My other friend lightheartedly teased him about his paranoia, joking that his wine carrier…
In GQ, Alan Richman tells a fascinating story about his friend, who he simply calls “The Collector.” The Collector has an expansive wine cellar filled with more than 2,000 of the finest wines on the market, enough to make any wine collector’s mouth water. One day, The Collector suddenly sold off 90 percent of his…
Take it from Andrew Jefford if you want to write great wine tasting notes; as one of the best wine writers in the modern world, Jefford knows what it takes to write gorgeous, pragmatic prose. He says, “Numbers alone cannot adequately address the mystery of wine’s complexity; words must be involved.” Yet these words are…
About 25 years after becoming a serious wine collector, Scot Six had accumulated a collection of about 14,000 bottles. With a collection this big, Six was in desperate need of an easy-to-use app that would make organizing and keeping track of his collection more simple. “I was looking for something to make it easier…
When I visited a friend’s wine bar last year, I asked him which wines he’d recommend. As he pulled out a few bottles, he pointed to one and said, “That’s actually my own bottle. I’m keeping it here because I don’t have room for it at home right now.” My friend buys hundreds of bottles…
Every month, we’ll highlight one wine that is highly underrated for its supreme quality and projected market worth. March’s Hidden Gem of the Month focuses on Pinot Noir, but before you invest in your next bottle, you might want to think about skipping Burgundy in favor of Oregon. Pinot Noir from Oregon is steadily…