Wine Wired

Just the other day I had someone ask me about a pairing with Asian cuisine and my knee-jerk response was Riesling. The person responded by saying, “I don’t like sweet wine.” I have heard this statement about Riesling before. I knew, at that moment, I had to come to the defense of this often misunderstood […]

South Africa’s wine has matured greatly over the last 20 years. This is largely due to a flood of foreign investment monies and foreign winemaking knowledge. One of the early legislative decisions, back in 1973, was the creation of the “Wine of Origin” concept. The country, it seems , has caught up with and may […]

The federal law created the American AVA in 1978 to supplement the existing appellation system. Many confuse the AVA as a quality indicator, which it is not. The AVA is a guarantee of source and, if mentioned on the bottle, 85% of the grapes came from that area. Variety is another misleading factor on the […]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to give you some information on how the USA, and especially California wine laws affect your decisions on purchasing wine. First the distinct “wine growing areas” of this country are called AVAs, or American Viticultural Area. The AVA was created by federal law in 1978 and anyone can petition for […]