Harvest truly is a magical time. It’s the culmination of a year in the vineyard. The world recedes to the end of a long tunnel, as all daily obligations are temporarily relieved, allowing pure, crystalline focus on the task at hand. This is true in all forms of agriculture, but particularly so in wine. For us, harvest is both the completion of our farming year and the beginning of our winemaking cycle, and it provides…

The purpose of each of the charts below is to link the chemical causes of distinctive wine aromas to the potential descriptions we can use to describe these elements. Each class of aromatic compound is explained in more detail in our Science of Tasting Expanded Guide.

Special thanks to Madeline Puckette from Winefolly.com for working with us on these graphics.

Fruit, flower, and herb:

• Many fruity aromas and lightly…

When we came to Austin about ten years ago, the professional wine community was pretty nonexistent, at least from a standpoint of people actively pursuing education in the service industry. We were introduced to each other by Guy Stout and soon found ourselves studying together for a few years, eventually achieving our Master Sommelier pins. Along the way, we had a few join us in the pursuit, including Mark Sayre and…

Last week, I had my second experience working La Paulée, the annual Burgundy festival organized by sommelier Daniel Johnnes. The Paulée now alternates location each year between San Francisco and New York, and—having worked in San Francisco last February—I was curious to see what small bits of Burgundy wisdom the reputedly bigger, wilder, even-more-gratuitous iteration in New York might be able to supply. Here is a sampling…

From the outside, Italian wine looks bewildering—and with good reason. Imagine the intricacy of Burgundy and all its wines complicated by a plethora of grapes, laws, styles, names, and each and every Italian winemaker’s unique sense of expression. Yes...

By Ronan Sayburn MS
A version of this article originally appeared in print in the pages of Imbibe UK.

While judging at a recent Sommelier competition I saw a lot a varied answers to the question "Explain the differences between Organic, Biodynamic and Natural wines." It’s a good question and one that guests may well ask, so hopefully this article could help clear up some of the confusion. With all three,…

I spent three decades in F&B management, created dozens of wine lists, and taught many a beverage sales staff in hotels, casinos, restaurants and resorts, etc. My takeaway, in relation to this feature article and to what I do today? That fortified wine has always been a tough sell—no matter how prominently it’s listed on menus, featured in pairings, or aligned with desserts.

Yes, today we might see the…

Canada's Icewine & Ice Cider

Between the woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year.
-Robert Frost

…many people believe that none of the four seasons accurately describe the two months of darkness that all of Canada experiences in the months of July and August, so there’s now a movement to actually have a fifth season in Canada, and we have three names: the Slumber, the Equinox, or the Canadark.…

Toronto. To offer up a quick comparison, we’re about the same size as Chicago (actually, Toronto is slightly larger) and considered Canada’s financial center. Far from the stereotypical image of Canadians you might be expecting (eh!), Toronto—or what we like to call the “GTA” (the Greater Toronto Area)— is quite cosmopolitan, with an impressive 49% of its population hailing from outside of Canada……

Top 13 Things We Learned at Somm Camp

This past November the Guild of Sommeliers hosted our second annual Somm Camp, bringing 12 American and Canadian CMS-certified sommeliers to Napa Valley and Sonoma County for a three-day immersion in winemaking and viticulture. For making this incredible opportunity a reality, we are very grateful to our sponsors: Jackson Family Wines' Spire Collection (including Vérité, Lokoya,…