In contemplating how to make a truly global experience out of today's annual National Wine Day, we decided to ask several of our wine writing friends to tell us about their favorite of the world's wine regions. We left the question open ended to be as specific (Santa Barbara's Ballard Canyon AVA) or as wide open (several regions scattered about New Zealand), and loved what we found.
Read moreWhich wines should I drink as winter becomes spring? Our Best of March (April and May, too).
We spent last week's first day of spring, whilst snow fell here at home in Virginia, contemplating which wines we'd recommend to everyone in the northern hemisphere's seasonal regions as we transition into (perhaps slightly) warmer weather. Spring and autumn are the conundrum seasons for those of us whose tastes hew fairly reliably to thirst for reds in winter and whites in summer. So in this our Best Wines of March we recommend you look into a white, a rosé, and a red that we find pretty reliable in confused temperatures.
Read moreBest of February, recommending five Champagnes to toast Valentine's Day and the year beyond
Ask anyone who has ever put proverbial pen to paper writing about wine here, and you'll be vociferously encouraged to drink more Champagne. It's celebratory, to be sure, but it's also quite well suited to adding texture before, during or after a meal, or to drink on its own. We're celebrating Wine:Thirty Flight's third Valentine's Day with our best wines of February - five bottles of Champagne to pop open with the love of your life, or whoever you find yourself sipping with this fourteenth of February.
Read moreBest of January: Explore great wines to drink when the weather gets cold
On the heels of our piece last month -- Like a string of Christmas lights, our top December wine recommendations are all sparkling -- we've decided to focus our monthly wine tasting on a theme with some recommendations, rather than the other way around. Our hunch is that focusing on themes will be more useful than focusing on specific bottles that may or may not be available in your local market. For January, we ask, which wines are best to drink when the weather is cold?
Read moreOur top ten wines of 2017: Powerfully good bottles that tell richly compelling stories
We conceptualize our favorite wines in three dimensions, asking ourselves which bottles we'd characterize as having a special blend of being powerfully good, telling a richly compelling story, and transporting us (and you) to interesting places. So it is that as we look back on 2017 -- or any year -- we're thinking about our top 10 bottles a bit differently than simply making a list of the ten conventionally highest point earners we reviewed this year. Rather, we're sharing the ten bottles that most dominated our wine consciousness, that kept us talking and remembering every peculiar scent and taste, and that opened our eyes to histories and landscapes we may have not previously known.
Read moreLike a string of Christmas lights, our top December wine recommendations are all sparkling
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. The occasion thirsts for an all-sparkling lineup to celebrate the holidays. If you find yourself hard up for some red wine options, though, do check out last month's wine list, where we recommended three outstanding bottles to serve with your Thanksgiving, err, December holiday dinner.
Read moreOur November wine list features three outstanding bottles to serve with your Thanksgiving dinner
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. We're focused on wines perfect for the typical American Thanksgiving dinner this month, as we're just days away from cracking open several of these to share with our own families. Go find them yourselves, and let us know what you recommend!
Read moreOur October wine picks are a volcanic white, a stunning Virginia red, a tried and true Rioja
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. You must forgive us from being just returned from Spain, a trip whose experience shows in our picks this month. We're changing things a bit this month, going from our usual five recommendations down to three. We want to be a bit more choosy. Cheers!
Read moreTransition to autumn wine drinking with our Top Five wine tasting lineup for September
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. It's 64 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 18 degrees to you much more worldly Celsius-loving folk) outside on Cape Cod as I write this, a far cry from the summer months that brought us but one red (a Tempranillo from Texas) out of fifteen bottles shared in our June, July, and August tastings. Yes, like Pinot Noir grown far enough north (or south) to "cross the cranberry line", our September lineup has us looking to autumn and the cooler temperatures ahead. Cheers!
Read moreOur August top five lineup of rosé and white wines could not be more refreshing
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. We're celebrating our last gasp of the high summer season with a lineup of five bottles that gush refreshing (two rosé and three white), a worthy followup to our all-white June lineup and our red, white, blue, sparkling, and rosé July lineup. Cheers!
Read moreCelebrate Albariño Day with these great bottles, perfect for summer yet versatile for the whole year
We've long been admirers of the Albariño grape varietal, perhaps most famous for the wines it produces -- floral and characterized by peach and apricot fruit notes -- in the Rías Baixas region of Galicia, near the Atlantic Ocean in the northwest of Spain. August 1 is International Albariño Day, so we've asked our wine writer friends to share some of their favorites with us. Both delicious and unique, we hope you will seek these and other Albarinños out all week, every week, and all summer.
Read moreRed, white, blue, sparkling, and rosé: Celebrate the Fourth of July with these five all-American wines
In celebration of Independence Day in the United States, our monthly wine pick lineup for July is all American, featuring red, white and blue, plus sparkling (fireworks!) and rosé (because why not)! This lineup very purposefully aims for diversity across America's many excellent wine regions, highlighting some interesting options in what American winemaking has to offer. We hope you'll seek these out (or others like them) wherever you are in the world this month. Cheers!
Read moreHouse (Wine) Hunters: Two whites and two reds that taste much better than their low price
Last time we recommended a lineup of House Wines, it was in the form of Four tasty Italian reds from Barone di Bernaj, at $8.99 per bottle. Today we're once again hunting for great wine at great prices. This is a fairly well balanced lineup featuring two whites and two reds, all of which are rather different from one another. Serve some at your next summer party, and enjoy. Cheers!
Read moreOur top wine picks for June, these five refreshing white wines will keep you happy all summer
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. This highly diverse lineup of whites from around the world will keep almost every combination of tastes happy as summer hits the northern hemisphere this month. Cheers!
Read moreCelebrate National Wine Day with our favorite bottles from the first half of 2017
May is a big month for wine themed holidays and celebrations. We've not only celebrated Oregon Wine Month and Aussie Wine Month, but tomorrow, May 25th, is National Wine Day in the United States. While we wish this occasion rose to the level of day-off-from-work holiday, we're settling for five of our favorite wines we've reviewed thus far this year. Think of this as a midyear preview of our "Best of 2017" lineup. Cheers!
Read moreThese three great reds from three different regions are our picks for Aussie Wine Month
Our friend Casey at Travelling Corkscrew in Australia has reminded us that May is Aussie Wine Month, a momentous occasion that we're celebrating with these three great red wines from three of the country's wine regions. We're sad that we couldn't get our hands on a Pinot Noir from Tasmania -- one of our favorite tough to find (in the United States, at least) bottles -- but we're excited to share these with you. If you love Australian wine, consider following Travelling Corkscrew for more.
Read moreCelebrate Oregon Wine Month with these excellent, yet very different bottles of wine
May is Oregon Wine Month! We're celebrating with four (ok, five) recommendations, and we've worked really hard to select different varietals because we think that any "wine month" highlighting a specific region is a great opportunity to try things you'd not have otherwise considered. Cheers!
Read moreTop five wines for May take us around the world with two whites, two rosés, and a great red
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. This geographically diverse lineup includes contestants from France, New York, New Zealand, California, and Spain. All are delicious. Enjoy!
Read moreHouse (Wine) Hunters: Four tasty Italian reds from Barone di Bernaj, at $8.99 per bottle
It's been months since we last shared some good house wine recommendations in the form of a trio of Pinot Noirs last fall, but we're once again hunting for great wine at great prices so you can spend a bit less on wine by serving something that is better than its price. This lineup of Italian wines -- Barone di Bernaj -- all come from the same Sicilian producer, Madaudo. We happened into several cases that we really enjoyed. All were $8.99 per bottle when purchased by the case.
Read moreThese Top Five wines for April are perfect for springtime drinking with food or on their own
Casual wine drinkers, aficionados, and beginners alike: Each month we expose you to new things, educating and diversifying your palate with a lineup of our monthly wine picks. We're sharing some of the best we've tried in the last month so that you can seek them out and bring them to dinner this month. It feels a bit like springtime where we live, so we're gravitating to wines that make us feel like this time of year: Four specially selected whites and a red to help us walk the bridge from winter to summer. Enjoy!
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