I grew up in a California winemaking family, and through this network, I got to know dozens of winemakers in Napa Valley and Sonoma. One of these social connections earned me a free weekend stay at a house on a beautiful California vineyard. Without this complex social web, I would have never had the opportunity…
Hannah R. Ruehlman had a problem; she needed to find a bottle of wine from 1952 as an anniversary gift for her husband, but she had no idea where to start. She turned to husband-and-wife wine writing team Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher for help. Fortunately for Ruehlman, John Brecher was in the same…
Wine investor Tom Gearing has seen his fair share of nervous wine collectors trying to get into investment-grade French wine for the first time. Collectors often feel as though they need to spend thousands of dollars on the top wine estates in France in order to get decent profits from their investments, but this isn’t…
The best wine critics in the world act as gatekeepers of the wine market. They have the power to sink a wine with a terrible review, or raise a wine up to legendary status. However, wine critics aren’t always consistent with their ratings; a study in the Journal of Wine Economics found that in blind…
Last summer, I was invited to a massive wine and dinner party that was attended by at least 50 guests. Since every couple brought along a bottle of wine, the two hosts scrambled to open dozens of bottles as the night wore on. About two hours into the party, one of the hosts needed to…
Writer Jonathan Ray jokes that “bachelor wine merchants” make the best godparents; they pick out incredible birth year wines for their godchildren that will last two decades or more in the cellar. Ray explains that he has eight godchildren of his own, and has bought them each a case of wine as gifts when they…
No matter how experienced you are, wine faults can fool you. Just ask wine writer Chris Kissack, who fell victim to buying cooked wine. In his blog, he describes buying three bottles from a well-respected wine retailer. Even though he says he noticed some minor signs of heat damage on the wine’s cork, he didn’t…
Backlash has been brewing over jammy, bold California Cabernet. Critics of wine “Parkerization” (named after wine critic Robert Parker) claim that these big Cabernets are the epitome of what’s wrong with the modern wine market; namely, that subtle flavors are being sacrificed for bold, rich notes that fade quickly. Winemaker Bill Dyer adds, “Colors…
How much would you pay for a bottle of 1995 Latour? If I told you that the bottle hadn’t left the Latour estate since it was bottled nearly two decades ago, would you be willing to pay more for it than a bottle that’s passed through dozens of hands in its lifetime? In 2013, collectors…
When I was living in a tiny two-bedroom apartment after I graduated from college, I had to come up with creative ways to store my wine. I carved out the perfect little space in my walk-in closet (which was easily one of the biggest “rooms” in the unit). I was proud of my miniature wine…
One of my best friends is a bold red wine fanatic; when I say he loves a rich Cabernet Sauvignon, I mean he will turn his nose up at any bottle of white wine or even Pinot Noir. His only love is Cabernet. But there’s a reason for his niche taste: he’s allergic to wine…
When you buy a case of pre-arrival wines from a retailer, you probably don’t expect to wait six years for your wine bottles to arrive. That’s what happened to Wine Berserkers forum member Mike Wenzel, who bought pre-arrivals from the now-bankrupt California wine retailer Premier Cru. He explained on the forum that he bought a…
