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Switzerland is not generally known abroad for its wines. Several factors contribute to that: the climate is much different from that of sun-drenched California, production is expensive due to the cost of real-estate and labor costs are well above the EU, and especially South America. In a world accustomed to increasingly powerful wines at competitive prices, Swiss wines will have a difficult time against wines from Argentina, Australia and Chile, for example…. Read more

All sorts of things probably spring to mind when I say Texas – big, oil, Houston we have a problem, wide open spaces, women with big hair, Texas twangs, over the top state pride, cowboys, former presidents who are cowboys – but my guess is that wine probably doesn’t really make it onto most people’s list.

I just returned from a weekend of spirits tasting. As the Old World Old Guy, I was shocked by the prevailing attitudes I found my fellow tasters had, including the lecturer at our event, to lesser-known spirits. Everyone knows it is fashionable to like Cognac. Aficionados go for Armagnac and their dried fruit flavors. Fewer are enthusiastic about Brandy de Jerez. Surprising, to me at least, is the level of enthusiasm for the best-selling “clean spirits,” e.g. vodka. Its singular distinguishing mark is this: the less you can identify the base material, the better it seems to be.

It takes a lot of sheep to make good wine in New Zealand. Sheeps milk, to be more exact.

Not that beer is losing ground as a favorite drink for the winemaking set during harvest; and these winemakers are not necessarily guzzling back tall glasses of the white milky stuff. But if it weren’t for all of the sheep in the country, who knows how long it would have taken New Zealand to get into the international winemaking game.

What is Eiswein? Well, for those of you who might not be familiar with this beautifully aromatic and sweet dessert wine here is a little background.

Although Eiswein/Ice wine can now be had from regions around the world one could say that Germany is the re-birthplace if not the birthplace of this unctuous elixir. While Germany often gets the credit for creation of ice wine there are indications that frozen grapes were used to make wine in Roman times.

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Entering wine country in Portugal is almost like being Alice falling down the rabbit hole. It’s a whole other world. It is also one of the most intriguing wine regions of the world.

Port wines have been famous for centuries, and its winegrowing area was one of the very first in the world to be legally limited by certain boundaries (called demarcation). Now Portugal’s wine producers are taking their table wines just as seriously as their fortified wines. And table wines from Portugal are among the top ten imports into the U.S. There are roughly 230 grape varieties grown here.