Tag: VINsights
How Does Wine Get Aromas and Flavors?
Newcomers to wine often find it confusing that wine rarely smells or tastes like grapes. Most white wines smell more of tree fruits like apples or …
Why We Decant Certain Wines
Decanters have long been used to make wine look pretty, or to control its temperature, but improving flavor by decanting is a relatively recent phenomenon. It …
How to Read Wine Maps Historically
Many puzzling aspects of today’s wine landscape make more sense if we consider their historical context. For example, understanding where, when and how quality-oriented winemaking first …
Three Ways Rosé Wine is Made
Rosé can be a bit of a mystery. Labels rarely offer much information about how the style is made. Books and classes explain that pink wines …
Pairing Wine with Spicy Foods
Foods with spicy heat can be stimulating and enjoyable, but are also famously hard to pair successfully with wines. Some wines are better equipped than others …
How to Talk About Sweetness in Wine
Sweetness in wine — or its absence, known as dryness — causes more confusion for consumers than any other sensory trait. This is largely due to …
How to Make Sense of Wine Language
To enjoy a glass of wine requires no training, but to communicate about it effectively, we need the right words. Most of wine’s sensory qualities are …
How to Calculate Calories in Dry Wine
Nowadays, many wine shoppers are calorie-conscious, choosing hard seltzers and other manufactured diet drinks in a bid to stay healthy. Many dry wines can offer a …
New to Wine? Study France First!
It is almost impossible to make sense of the modern wine world without grasping the influential role played by France. The French may not have been …
Why Vineyard Soil is So Important for Terroir
Grasping the underlying concept of terroir is like getting an all-access pass that helps unlock many of wine’s most confounding secrets. Terroir is the reason why …