Author Archive

Wine drinkers are creatures of habit. We tend to drink the same wines and shop in the same places for those wines, which, frankly, doesn’t do much to expand our wine horizons.

This wine cost nine bucks. How do the Italians do it? Their economy is in shambles and the euro is killing the dollar. If this was French wine, it would cost $15 or $18. I’m not complaining, of course. I’m just continually and pleasantly surprised by the quality and value … more

The holiday that must not be named is next week. You want to buy sparkling wine. But sparkling wine, being sparkling wine, is expensive and confusing.

Not to worry. I am on the job, as always, looking out for everyone caught between bubbly’s rock and hard place. The Bertrand ($15, … more

White wines from France’s Rhone region aren’t particularly well known and, at least in this country, don’t get all that much respect. You don’t see many of them on store shelves or restaurant wine lists, and you don’t see many of them reviewed, for that matter.

Which is a shame, … more

Don’t dismiss a wine just because it doesn’t have a cork. Screwcap, Tetrapak, box … The type of closure is no longer a reflection of quality. These wines show just that.

I have always wondered how to approach Chianti, which is not only the one Italian red wine that most Americans know, but the one Italian red wine that wine snobs turn their noses up at. If I review it, I run the risk of alienating both groups — a neat … more

This white blend from Bordeaux has been in and out of the $10 Hall since I started it 10 years ago — but not because of quality. Rather, what once was a $10 wine has been as expensive as $15 in around here, and though I like it a lot, it’s not … more

One of the biggest winners in Trader Joe’s decision to open its first Dallas store on Lower Greenville in East Dallas could well be Oak Cliff. The reason? Because Oak Cliff’s redevelopment is following more or less the same path that East Dallas’ has taken, and Trader Joe’s arrival points … more

If most wine drinkers know Freixenet, it’s from the black bottle that they see at the grocery store. And the black bottle is decent enough $9 Spanish sparkling wine, or cava.

Sometimes, though, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll see the black bottle’s cousin, a rose cava called Rosado ($9, purchased, … more

Cheap wine is more popular than ever, but the wine industry — and especially the wine writing part of it — seems to resent cheap wine more than ever. Their reasons aren’t quite clear, but chalk up much of the backlash to the fact they’re tired of cheap wine, and want to get back to making and writing about the expensive stuff. We can be a bit snobbish, no?