Cafaggio 2016 Chianti Classico Riserva
The world’s love of Tuscany is all-encompassing, but I think that blinds us to nuance. So while we dive head-first into our love affair, perhaps a more critical eye may be …
Te Mata 2019 Estate Vineyards Syrah, Hawke’s Bay
New Zealand’s South Island is well-established for its Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs. However, the North Island is still forging its identity as a fine wine producer. Of note, Hawke’s Bay …
Ram’s Gate 2017 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast
Great wine often turns millionaires into, well, less wealthy millionaires. This is one of those stories. The owners of Ram’s Gate spent seven million on building the winery, only to discover …
Upcoming Wine Tastings Classes
New Zealand & Australia Wines Tired of illustrations of Kangaroos and Kiwis? Yeah, me too. Why is it that wine cultures get reduced to their worst moments? The truth is that …
Fattoria Le Pupille 2019 Morellino di Scansano
A quick Italian wine lesson: When you see an Italian wine labeled as “Blah Blah” di “Blah Blah,” it always means “This Grape” from “This Place.” The phrase Morellino di Scansano …
Gunther Steinmetz 2018 “Unfiltriert” Pinot Noir, Mosel
German Pinot Noirs are having a well-deserved renaissance. Before the Little Ice Age (a time of drastic cooling in 15th Century Europe), Germany grew a lot of Pinot Noir. The Mosel …
Wine Tasting 101
Tasting wine is fundamentally different from drinking wine: The goal of tasting is to form an appreciation for the wine and its components. This intrinsically precludes overindulging. If you do, you’ll …
Getting Started in Wine
Wine is a great hobby; it’s an even better career. The wine trade offers a surprisingly vast tapestry of work opportunities. Unlike other passions, it’s the one vice that pays well …
Cabernet Sauvignon, Explained
Take a look at a list of the best-scored wines globally; browse the web for the most expensive reds in the market, or browse the top-shelf section of your local wine …
History of Zinfandel
All About Zinfandel For decades, Zinfandel was considered the all-American grape, an ultimate California wine. But there was always a mystery as to where it originated from. Starting in the 1960s, …
Know Your Wine Bottle
Wine bottles are based on centuries of traditions. The wine trade is deeply beholden to those traditions. Even the largest multinational wine corporation (talking to you, Gallo) won’t mess this those …
Wines for Beginners
For those of us in the wine trade, it’s hard to remember what it felt like to be a beginner. The nerves. The uncertainty. The fear of being judged. Being new …
Wine Regions of the World
The world of wine is at your fingertips. Here at the Wine School, many of our sommelier programs are founded on the idea the core of wine knowledge is understanding wine …
Wine Business 101
The wine business has unique traits without parallel in other markets. Wine is an agricultural product, but it’s also a lifestyle commodity; in some cases, wine bottles are collectible items, in …
The Seven Types of Corkscrews
Know Your Enemy: The Cork. Corks slowly became the most prominent bottle stoppers during a long three-hundred-year period between 1600 and the early 1900s. With the cork becoming a standard closure, …
Winemaking 101
We have been making wine for ten thousand years. For much of that time, winemaking has played an outsized role in our lives. It has been an economic engine since before …
Sommelier Courses in America
The world of wine is wonderful. Sommelier training opens opportunities in all sectors, from the hospitality industry to retail, from education to marketing, from distribution to production. Wine jobs are not …
Best Wineries Near Philadelphia
Stuck at home and need some wine? Want to support a local winery? A number of students in our online wine classes asked us for this list, and here it is! …
Israeli Wine Regions
Wine has been produced in this region for thousands of years. However, the modern wine industry has started only in the late 1800s with the help of Baron Edmond James de …
Sicilian Wine
If the idea of waking up to a sage-scented ocean breeze sounds alluring, what about sipping coffee in an ancient fruit orchard while looking out over the crystal-blue Mediterranean? The Sicilian …
French Wine Regions
France’s history with wine dates back to the 6th century BC when the city-state of Massalia (modern-day Marseille) began trading wines with other Mediterranean cultures. Viticulturally speaking, it remained a backwater …
Buying Wine Online
This was an easy list to write! I buy around $80K worth of wine a year for the wine school, not me. So I know who really delivers, in the most …
The Eight Major Beer Styles in America
Did you know there are over 6,000 craft breweries in the United States alone? And the phenomenon is global. People want good beer; artisanal, hand-crafted beers made with love and not …
All About Rosé Wine
From the palace of King Louis XIV to the vineyards of Pennsylvania, rosé has always been a part of wine drinking culture. This article offers the essentials of what it is, …
Italian Food and Wine Pairing
Italian food is beloved everywhere. Because of that, you will see sommeliers pairing Italian dishes with wine from nearly every country in the world. A good Chilean Sauvignon Blanc will match …
German Food and Wine Pairings
In today’s global economy, gastronomy is beyond generalizations. No cuisine can be justly profiled with a list of a few traditional dishes. Instead, like cultures, cuisines evolve, influenced by trends and …
Getting a Job in the Wine Business
The wine industry is a big place with career options to suit many people, from producing wine to selling the wine. There is something out there for anyone. We have compiled the …
Italian Wine Regions
Italy has a rich history with wine, dating back thousands of years. That all began to unravel in the first half of the 20th Century. Wars and political misadventures turned the …
Swiss Wines
Switzerland The people of Switzerland have so much love for their wine that they only export a small portion of it. The question is whether this is by design or lack …
Eleven Wine Blogs to Follow
The wine industry wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for some of the fantastic wine blogs we had access to today. Whether to inform us about serious wine matters or to …
Spanish Wine Regions
It is no secret that Spain has a lush terroir, bringing us the world’s most interesting cultivars and high-quality wine. As a result, Spain is now known for being one of the …
Portuguese Wine Regions
Only in the last few years has the wine-drinking public realized there is more to Portuguese fine wines than Port and Madeira. This was largely due to the ubiquitousness of cheap …
History of Wine
From as early as Biblical times, the idea of wine has been mentioned numerous times – and for thousands of years, wine has been used for ritual, religious, and even health …
Beaujolais
Beaujolais is a convivial region of Burgundy with a refocused attention to style. It is a place where light-hearted wines and creativity are allowed to thrive. Although nouveau is a popular …
Wine Ratings 101
Looking for wine reviews? Go here: Wine Ratings and Reviews Database How Wines Get Their Scores Wine ratings are both standardized and controversial. The ratings are often subject to individual preferences and …
Cellaring Wine
Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You …
Austrian Wine
Austria is well known for Mozart, Schnitzel, Sacher torte, and The Sound of Music, but are you aware of its viticulture? During the 19th century, Austria’s wine industry boomed, but many …
The Top BYOB Restaurants in Philly
BYO culture in Philly is unique among American cities. It came about due to the influence of the PLCB and high rent in Center City’s restaurant district. For most chefs, the …
Pennsylvania Wines
PA wines are slowly finding their footing. The preponderance of sweet pink trash is being supplanted by high-quality wines. The history of these wines is just being written. This article covers …
Wine Review: Bryn Mawr Vineyards 2017 Estate Pinot Noir, Eola Amity Hills
If you recognize the name “Bryn Mawr” then you are a very specific type of person. Option number one: from the Philly region and recognize it as (1) a posh mainline …
Wine Review: Torre Mora Cauru 2019 Etna Rosso
There are few places as beautiful and unknown to Americans as southern Sicily. It’s a place of great history (Phonecians anyone?), great vulcanology (hello, Mt. Etna!), and great wines (yo, Guisto!). …
Wine Review: Bodegas Frutos Villar 2015 “Muruve” Toro Reserva
If you don’t know Spanish wines, you are missing out. This is a bottle that could not exist at this price point in any part of the world. A fourth-generation winemaker …
Wine Review: Cellier des Terres Blanches 2019 Intuition Cotes du Rhone Rouge
This is one of those hard-to-find wines that have an insanely great quality to price ratio. For our Pennvyania readers, the search will be pretty easy: the entire 2019 vintage was …
Wine Review: Grain de Lune 2020 Sauvignon Gris, Bordeaux Blanc
Sauvignon Gris is a beautifully exotic grape: it is a pink mutation of the ubiquitous Sauvignon Blanc. You see a bit of it in South America but very little in its …
Wine Tasting Classes for Fall
France vs South America Part of the ongoing series of wine tastings devised by the brilliant Alana Zerbe. Take two great wine countries, toss them into a battle royale, and see …
Fritz Allendorf 2016 Spätburgunder, Assmannshäuser
Some names don’t translate well into English, and this quaint town on the Rhine river in Germany is one of them: Assmannshäuser. Of course, your inner fourteen-year-old will giggle, and that’s …
Summer Wine School
Spending your summer in the Italian Riviera, then this isn’t for you. Vacationing in Rioja? Stay put. Touring Sonoma with a winemaker friend? Don’t change your plans. Everyone else, pay attention! …
Luis Gurpegui 2014 “Primi” Rioja Reserva
Luis Gurpegui Muga is an old winery with extensive vineyards throughout Rioja. While common to see in Spain and Europe, this isn’t widely distributed in the United States. That is likely …