Grape of the Day

Let's get to the controversy first. This is not a debate about long-term shifts in climate on earth and what is or is not causing them. If that is the debate that you do want, there are plenty of places online that you can do that. Frankly, as someone who doesn't study climate science, my thoughts on the matter should no more influence yours than should any other random person's. Here is a fact. The last 10 years or so have been warmer across essentially our entire planet than they have been over any other 10 year period since people started using thermometers and recording temperatures for posterity. Roughly 50 years ago back in the 1970s, we had a multi-year period during which temperatures were much colder than norms over the same periods of manually or electronically recorded temperatures. Each has an effect on wine. Let's consider what this does to wine and to some extent why. And, before you think I've misled you, this is not about wine that might have been ma

 I took 3 years off from this blog. Why? I write off the top of my head and the top of my head just wasn't coming up with new ideas. So, I stopped for quite a while and focused on some other things.  What, you ask? Work, life, family, volunteering, debate reviews. One of those has somewhat fallen off the radar, so the top of my head had an idea. Suppose you were a person just getting into wine or even if you've been drinking it for a while had never really explored. What might I tell you to do? Do not drink Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon for a year.  That's right. I'm telling you to stay away from two of the most popular grapes in the world. Why would I do that? Well, among white wines, Chardonnay is about as full-bodied as it gets (yes, I could name some obscure grapes that might dispel that, but that's not the point) and among red wines, Cabernet is about as full-bodied as it gets. So, when people start their wine adventures with those fuller-bodied wines, they