Feature Articles
  • John Wilkinson: Pisco's Two Traditions

    Pisco. Two countries lay claim to it. One claims exclusive rights to the name. But as that country’s biggest competitor is also its biggest customer, everything gets a little more complicated...

    I moved to Santiago, Chile in early 2015 and got curious...

  • Erin Brooks: Navigating Wine Certification in America

    I’ve been told that life is about the journey, not the destination, and I try to remember this when I’m up at 6:00 a.m. for a tasting group, or at my desk at midnight after work writing an essay about modern viticultural practices in New Zealand. When...

  • Guild of Sommeliers: The Wines of Central Friuli

    An in-depth report by Daniel Bjugstad of Pizzeria Locale in Boulder, CO.

    Friuli Venezia Giulia, the border region between Italy’s Veneto and the neighboring countries of Slovenia and Austria, has been divided amongst empires for nearly two thousand years. The Romans, Huns, Goths, Lombards, Venetians, French, Austrians, Italians and Yugoslavs have all laid claim to the region at some point in history, and each culture…

  • Mark Ridgwell: Gin: The Perfect Storm of Tradition and Innovation

    For sure, gin is not among the world’s oldest spirits. Indeed, scarcely 300 years have passed since the Protestant William of Orange took the throne of England, Ireland and Scotland and called upon local compounders to provide an alternative to the imported...

  • State of the Industry: Spotlight: Miami

    Sunshine, amazing beaches, and nightclubs. That’s all anyone used to talk about when the word “Miami” was mentioned. And yes, those three things still (appropriately) draw droves of people to the southern tip of Florida… but today, you’re just as likely to hear people respond with “cocktails, cuisine and culture” as reasons for checking out our Magic City.

    As a matter of fact…

  • A Year in The Vineyard: The Harvest

    Harvest truly is a magical time. It’s the culmination of a year in the vineyard. The world recedes to the end of a long tunnel, as all daily obligations are temporarily relieved, allowing pure, crystalline focus on the task at hand. This is true in all forms of agriculture, but particularly so in wine. For us, harvest is both the completion of our farming year and the beginning of our winemaking cycle, and it provides…

  • Guild of Sommeliers: Winetasting Terminology - The Poetry and the Prose

    The purpose of each of the charts below is to link the chemical causes of distinctive wine aromas to the potential descriptions we can use to describe these elements. Each class of aromatic compound is explained in more detail in our Science of Tasting Expanded Guide.

    Special thanks to Madeline Puckette from Winefolly.com for working with us on these graphics.

    Fruit, flower, and herb:

    • Many fruity aromas and lightly…
  • State of the Industry: Spotlight: Austin

    When we came to Austin about ten years ago, the professional wine community was pretty nonexistent, at least from a standpoint of people actively pursuing education in the service industry. We were introduced to each other by Guy Stout and soon found ourselves studying together for a few years, eventually achieving our Master Sommelier pins. Along the way, we had a few join us in the pursuit, including Mark Sayre and…

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