by Wine Explorer | Jul 23, 2020 | The Wine Explorers Letter
Orange wine. Virtually unknown 30 years ago, in recent months the style has become so popular even Newsweek (not exactly on the viticultural vanguard) has been asking: “Orange wine is taking over, but what is it?” No, orange wine is not made from oranges. It’s made...
by Wine Explorer | Jul 17, 2020 | The Wine Explorers Letter
***Before we start today, have you seen our resident wine expert Julien Miquel’s tasting videos for our American Collection? If not, you can watch them at this link. *** Out in Northwestern Argentina, we pray for rain. The idea of intentionally restricting our vines’...
by Wine Explorer | Jul 10, 2020 | The Wine Explorers Letter
We’re busy shipping the American collection, including: a dry-farmed pinot (only 900 cases made) an organic take on “Rutherford dust” an inky, cold-soaked cab sauv fermented in small lots a wild-yeast tempranillo from the Pacific Northwest a co-fermented, limited...
by Wine Explorer | Jul 3, 2020 | The Wine Explorers Letter
American wine was reborn in the basement of the Modesto Public Library in California. There, brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo found old instructional guides on winemaking from the University of California. Studying these guides, they remade themselves as winemakers....
by Wine Explorer | Jun 26, 2020 | The Wine Explorers Letter
By the 1960s, there were zero wineries in Virginia, zero in Oregon, only 15 in Washington state, and barely 100 in California (compared to over 3,000 today). 70 years earlier, Virginia had been producing the best wines in the world. Meanwhile, Californian “Burgundies”...
by Wine Explorer | Jun 11, 2020 | The Wine Explorers Letter
We got a treat this week; someone sent us two bottles of “gris de gris” from Languedoc’s Corbières sub-region in France. For those unfamiliar with the gris de gris, it’s one of the more rare wine styles. Untouched, as of yet, by the industry’s hype machine (which is...
