California isn’t all beaches and movie stars. It’s actually much more wine country and mountains. While Napa and Sonoma steal most of the winemaking spotlight, the entire state is essentially blanketed with successful vineyards. Despite local variations in weather, climate, and soil types, the Golden State is essentially designed for viticulture, thanks to its one-of-a-kind combination […]
I drank a lot of Ravenswood in college. Mostly because I wanted to seem sophisticated and classy AF, but also because I just preferred it to beer. There was something to me that felt very adult about choosing wine over macro lager. But I was also on a budget, so while I had a taste […]
![Find Your Perfect California Red [Flowchart]](https://static.vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/flowchart-social.jpg)
California wine isn’t only Napa Cabernet. In fact, there is a cornucopia of options available to you, no matter your taste. Just follow this simple flowchart and we’ll point you to your ideal red wine from California.
If you’ve ever wondered what the hell makes one wine cost $600, welcome to the club! Sometimes, the price tag on expensive wine comes down to technology, or at least is justified by new and expensive tech. Some super-premium wine brands that charge upwards of $200 invest heavily in winery gadgets that take the guesswork out of […]
Sometimes the weather calls for bubbles. The holiday season is certainly a perfect time to pop a cork or two. Champagne, naturally, is my go-to for such occasions, but the pricetag usually means only popping it on special occasions. Traditional bubbly is incredibly time consuming to produce, and due to all the time it takes to […]
Why the hell are wines from the Napa Valley so expensive? As the owner of an international wine shop for seven years, I definitely sold my share of Napa Valley wine. The catch was that my wine shop was in downtown NYC — not an area of the city where one buys $60 Napa Valley reds and whites […]
With autumn fully set in and Thanksgiving a short two weeks away, we’re on the hunt for all things red and juicy: cranberry sauce, cherry pies, and yes, delicious, quaffable wines to serve on our Turkey Day table. Beaujolais and Pinot Noir are both solid, light-bodied reds to place in front of your guests, though […]
Labor Day weekend is one of the last times of the season we have to fire up the grill, head to the beach and celebrate America. And we wouldn’t be doing the weekend justice if we didn’t crack open a big old American wine, and nothing, we mean nothing, says America like a Cabernet from […]
When it comes to learning about wine, it’s the amount of minutiae that sucks out all the fun. Regions, subregions, crus, vineyards, producers, grapes — it can make our favorite beverage downright impossible to understand. In the grand scheme of things, the wines of the Napa Valley seem fairly straightforward; the region is all about […]
