I've begun working with Cork'd Content to provide articles for their audience; if you want to, you can check out my first one on recession-friendly sparkling wines.Hooray for guest columns!

Sparkling wine has long been a passion of mine; there's just something about the "pop" of a cork leaving a bottle, the bubbles in the glass, that simply makes me happy.That being said, I know that most people get confused easily with sparkling wine, and can understand that -- the terminology is confusing (and somewhat counterintuitive), for one thi...

Even though I'm a cork dork, I do enjoy a good beer every now and again (in fact, the Fiancee gave me a basic homebrewing kit for Christmas this year, and the bottles of my first batch are carbonating even as I type), which got me to thinking, how do different beers vary?Beer is really just a combination of about 4 items -- starch/sugar, yeast, wat...

Looking at my Top 10 list yesterday, and I got to thinking... "what wines would I splurge on?"Note that not all of these are wines I've had -- in fact, most, I haven't tried. But, if you had to get me a splurge-worthy wine, these would be the ones I'd love to see under the tree on Christmas... perhaps the wine geek on your Christmas list might en...

Looking through my notes for the year, the following are my favorite wines of 2009 (note: not highest scoring wines, some of these are on the list for their quality to price ratio).10: Mendoza Station Torrontes 2008. For under $6, it's a crisp, clean white from a region best-known for it's heavy reds, and it's insanely tasty. One of the very fe...

Even though it's late October, thoughts around casa Corkdork are turning to the holidays; partly because November also happens to be my father's birthday, partly because it's the time when we start considering "hey, what should we have with Thanksgiving dinner?"  There'll have to be at least 7 bottles purchased for gifting/celebrating this year -- ...

Through work yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to a very nice tasting (our last for the year, alas) -- wines for selling through the holidays.  We concentrated on sparkling wines, ranging from $8 cava through a $170 Krug Grand Cuvee.Interestingly enough, the Krug was a late replacement for another bottle -- the 1998 Nicholas Feuilette Palmes D...

One of the things that I see a great deal at work is people worrying about whether or not a certain wine is organic.Odd -- it's a term that's pretty over-used in the wine world (go visit a vineyard.  They'll tout that their wine has an organic connection, I'll wager -- either it's "organic grapes," or "no harsh chemical pesticides," or "we farm sus...

In his last column as food critic for the New York Times, Frank Bruni offers the following tips for getting the best value in your next fine dining experience:Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. Th...

One of the email lists I subscribe to is Bottlenotes' The Daily Sip.  Todays email refers to a very.... unique... kind of wine holder, pictured to the right.  It's called the "Don't break the bottle wine caddy," and I can see it being an absolutely infuriating (in a good way) means to give someone a gift of a good bottle of wine.  They'll have to w...

Yesterday, I had a very nice conversation with someone about Champagne -- and, oddly enough, I was not in a wine store when doing so.  While waiting in line at the bank, a woman in chef's pants (it turns out she is in fact a cook at a local restaurant) struck up a conversation asking "so what do you do?"  When I replied that I work in wine, she ask...

The other night, having found a great special on ribs at the local supermarket, my fiancee and I decided it was time to cook some barbecue with a slightly spicy sauce, with corn and baked potato on the side.  Of course, that meant we had to crack open something nice from the cellar; in this case, we popped open the bottle of Two Hands Angel's Share...

Sorry, loyal readers, we're having some network difficulties here at casa Corkdork (I'm updating via a neighbor's unsecured wireless that has 1 bar).  Since I've got to put my "network geek" hat on, instead of my "wine geek" hat... no wine post today.We'll see what comes up tomorrow, but for now...  playing with my cable modem, router, and network ...

Last night, over a simple meal of pizza and wine (naturally), my thoughts turned to the region where the wine came from -- Sicily.Sicilian wine has had a bad reputation in past years; they produce a relatively large volume of wine, most of which is jug-wine quality whites (only 1.5% of Sicily's nearly 300 million gallon production comes from DOC pl...

One of the things that people who aren't "big wine drinkers" often cite as a reason for not trying a lot of wines is the expense -- buying bottles to take home can add up, buying glasses in a restaurant is even more so.  But... how do you find wine you love without trying new wines?Ahh, the eternal dilemma -- the safe, comfortable, known wines vers...

While reading through my favorite consumer blog, Consumerist, I found an article about advertising and persuasion, which linked to this longer post, which distills the knowledge of the book "Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive". I found a number of these points to be important to the sale and marketing of wine, especially:1. Incon...

I had the joy of getting to taste two of Coelho Winery's wines at a trade tasting yesterday.  Here I am, to tell you... these folks are one to watch.Their business plan is sound (they're running a profit in the fourth year of operations -- this is well-nigh unheard-of in the wine world).  Their costs are low (it's a family winery -- the family's ch...

It's summer, and that means wedding season; perhaps you or someone you know is planning a wedding?  A few tips for dealing with the wine aspect of it:The general rule of thumb is that each adult will have 1 drink per hour.  That's an average, taking into account your teetotaler cousin Julie, and your lush of a brother-in-law Chris.  Over a long par...

I know I've done it.  You've done it too.  You're in an unfamiliar (or even familiar) wine store, looking at new wines, and you look at the shelf talker, and in the corner you see "WA: 91."You cave, skipping the description.  You buy the wine.  Based on a number.Don't feel bad, we've all done it.  There's a number of sensory biases that the little ...

Few terms on a wine label cause more contention -- and more misunderstanding -- than the little phrase "contains sulfites."  It's on almost every bottle of wine sold in the US, and I'd wager that 95% of consumers don't understand what it really means.For a wine to be sold in the US, it must have a "contains sulfites" label if there's more than 10 p...