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It happened again, the moment that the Court of Master Sommeliers prepares you for. . . being called into wine service at the drop of a proverbial hat. I recently helped with the Wines of Georgia tour during its local stop; midway through the master class, I was asked to pour for one of the wineries that hadn't been able to send a representative. Thankfully, the master class had given me a solid base, and off I went to talk about four wines from a country that, until then, I

Did you know that Beaujolais Nouveau is not the first wine of the season? Weeks before those familiar bottles arrive in November, across parts of Europe the new vintage is already being poured - cloudy, fizzy, slightly sweet and still actively fermenting. It is wine caught somewhere between freshly pressed grape juice and the finished vintage, and you have only a brief window to drink it. In Germany, it is called Federweißer; in Austria, Sturm; in the Czech Republic, burčák

Harvest 2026 is nearly here. For Europe, this year has felt different from the very beginning. The first images that caught my attention in March were rows of frost candles glowing through the darkness in Burgundy as growers fought to protect tender new buds. Weeks later came photographs of hail-damaged vines from the Côte de Beaune. Then came the fires - not just in one region, but across Europe. Somewhere along the way, the growing season stopped being the story; humanity,

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has arrived. As historians will rightly spend the time examining the events, ideas, and personalities that shaped the nation, wine lovers have another way to trace the American story - by looking at what was in the glass. Over the last two and a half centuries, the wines Americans celebrated, collected, imported, and eventually produced themselves have reflected the country's changing fortunes, ambitions, and identity.

Few stories in wine combine ambition and risk quite like suitcase clones - vine cuttings carried across borders by growers convinced they had found material capable of improving their vineyards. Wine is built on lineage, and in places like Burgundy, certain vineyards - Montrachet, Romanée-Conti, La Tâche - are spoken of as though greatness can be traced through generations of vines, farming, and careful replanting. The reputation of these vineyards extended well beyond their