Red

In 1755, when Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, third Duke of Richelieu and marshal of France, was taken ill while in Guienne, a physician prescribed liberal doses of a certain red wine from Bordeaux. When Richelieu returned to Versailles, Louis XV remarked that he appeared to be at least 25 years younger than when he […]

With the warm summer months here, many people are entertaining outside or visiting friends, and Eric Goldstein, co-proprietor and marketing president at Park Avenue Liquor Shop in New York, offers advice on what to drink in the heat, and more. Q.  What is a good, light summer wine? A. Just because you’re breaking out your “summer […]

In the minds of most enthusiasts, Médoc is the cradle of Bordeaux. After all, this important region on the Left Bank of the Gironde River is home to four of the great châteaux that received First Growth rankings in the definitive 1855 classification: Château Lafite-Rothschild, Château Latour, Château Margaux, and Château Mouton Rothschild. Its prominence […]

Although Calistoga is home to what is perhaps Napa Valley’s most fabled and historic vineyard, the region was only very recently approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau as an American Viticultural Area, or AVA. First planted with Riesling and Zinfandel in the 1880s, the Eisele Vineyard is one of the rockiest […]

‘‘My wife’s brother died in California, leaving quite an estate,’’ reads an 1879 letter from Stalham Wing in Napa Valley to a friend in Ohio. His family sent him out to settle affairs, he explains in the note, but legal challenges ensued, and by the time the matter was resolved, little property was left. He […]

One may be forgiven for assuming that Quilceda Creek is a new player among the world’s elite producers of Cabernet Sauvignon, given that Washington state has seen the establishment of more than 530 new wineries and the designation of seven new American Viticultural Areas in the last 10 years alone. Yet its owners, father-and-son winemaking […]

Véronique Drouhin knew she had discovered a special place when, in July 1987, she first crested the remote Oregon hillside that would become home to one of the most respected vineyards in the New World. Dropping gently away to the southeast, the idyllic slope before her offered breathtaking views across the Willamette Valley toward the […]

Success can sometimes be achieved by accident, but greatness requires deliberate effort. Certainly the late Jess Jackson understood this, though he once jokingly remarked to me that the success of his first winery was actually a happy coincidence. That project began in 1974, when Jackson, a San Francisco–based attorney, joined the burgeoning ranks of California […]

Though Burgundy’s most fabled producer holds property in seven different grand cru vineyards, the domaine’s identity is inextricably intertwined in the minds of admirers with the 4.5 acres of earth from which it takes its name, Romanée-Conti. In the 13th century, this walled plot near Vosne-Romanée belonged to the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of […]