To decant or not to decant? Dan Berger explores the complexity of the question: when does it help and when does it harm wines?

There’s no question that wine greatness now is available in places throughout the United States that once made only mediocre plonk, but how can you find out about them? 

The chestnut colt Rich Strike won the Kentucky Derby, at odds of 80 to 1, making him one of horse racing’s most unlikely winners ever. The phrase “unlikely winner” applies also to several dozen superb wines are regularly bypassed  – and for reasons that have nothing to do with good taste.

"Warning," writes Dan Berger. "Lesson ahead. But trust me, it’s not painful and doesn’t entail calculus, NFTs or annuities. What follows leads to great red wine values."

In most fine wine districts of Northern Europe, varietals are, by law, specified to be only those that are approved to be grown there. By contrast, in the U.S.  no formal link between place and grape varieties exists, and any grape can be planted anywhere. Which approach is best?

It's less common today but cork taint and other flaws still turn up in wines.

Most quality wines are served with food, a marriage that helps enhance the enjoyment of both. And some of the most mundane experiences can be elevated to the sublime when all the pieces fall into place.

Dan Berger begins a series looking at grape varieties, varietal authenticity and the complication of "eccentricities and vineyard mutations or adaptations."

Dan Berger looks at the power of names like Napa Valley and Champagne — and Petaluma Gap. 

For a variety of reasons, wines are being sent to market on schedules that are far less predictable than ever before, but this may not be a bad thing for consumers. 

Some of the “innocent” fibbing that goes on in this industry

From gold-flecked labels to ultra-heavy bottles to holographic images, we face all manner of false signs and detours in our quests to get a decent quaff. 

"It's alive!" is a phrase that also applies to wine, a living product that can change over time — sometimes in an unpleasant way. Changes can encourage some wine lovers to strategize how and when to drink them.

After a life making wine Charlie Tolbert is unwilling to call it a career. It’s been too much fun.

With his Popeluchum project, Randall Grahm is attempting what no vigneron has ever attempted: to propagate 10,000 new grape varieties, from disease-resistant progenitors, with the aim of identifying one or more new ‘genius’ grape varieties.

Wine lovers who are searching for specific bottles last week got a huge assist with the launch of a new search engine oriented to them that will make finding wines that much easier. It's called pix.com.

Winemakers in the United States can become stars, a phenomenon that doesn’t exist in Europe. Is it because they know that at least half the credit for a great wine should go to growers? 

"I used to like Zinfandel," Dan Berger writes. "He was an engaging, humorous fellow who often regaled us with silly jokes, had razor retorts for hecklers who disliked his brand of humor, and usually was the life of the party. Then arrogance set in..."

Many wine lovers will realize that the gift-giving season ain’t always a blessing. Dan Berger suggests gifts to give yourself: three outstanding books on wine. 

Is terroir dead? Dan Berger argues that "certainly it’s in the intensive care ward and the nurse is named Ratched."

Colombard, as most people call her, has been overwhelmingly disparaged over the decades

How can you tell that a red wine that tastes great when it’s young will be sublime and display excellence when it’s older? 

In general, the colder a region is, the more divergent its wines are. And diversity can make wines that are fascinating.

California’s 2021 harvest will prove to be smaller in size statewide than the average of the last six years, but quality looks phenomenal, almost across the board.

In Napa they are once more celebrating the 1976 Judgment of Paris, but are the Napa Cabernets of today anything like those that triumphed in Paris 45 years ago? 

Dan Berger has been evaluating wines since the 1970s. Here, he explains how it does it, what matters, and what doesn't. 

Wine “experts” come in all shapes and sizes, from generalists to specialists. What constitutes expert knowledge in one area of wine may have no meaning in other areas. This is one aspect of wine that makes it such a complex and difficult subject to master.

One of the wine industry’s Achilles heels, and a topic no one ever talks about, is that domestic wines’ retail prices always seem to go up and almost never come down.

If you drink a glass of wine per day or more and fret about your weight, how’d you like to avoid ingesting tens of thousands of calories a year and not give up your wine?

Dan Berger makes the case for Riesling as" probably was the world’s greatest grape" that makes dramatic and sublime wines – with both elements occasionally seen in the same bottle.

A New York wine store is carrying a French wine from the 1990 vintage for which it is asking approximately $1,000 per bottle.

Bill Davies' new wine brands harken back to the nascent days of the Napa Valley wine industry's revival in the 1960s and '70s, both in style and in the varieties of grapes he is seeking out for his Bill D and Ramble brands. 

One of the ways people learn about wine is to pay attention to the region from which it comes and how it relates to its grape varieties. Learning about wine entails getting to know something about the appellations and sub-appellations where wine is impacted by its home soil.

Winemakers have more headaches than you’d imagine — and up to 200 decisions to make for each of their wines. The key is knowing when to do what and when to do nothing.

As restaurants begin to reopen and diners decide which wines to order, it's important to know how the wines were stored during the pandemic shutdowns, according to Dan Berger. 

You won't find many grape growers who’ll say that climate change is a hoax, but it is too simplistic to say the industry is in dire straits because of it.

Wine consumers don’t often see the real-world consequences of corporate business deals, but  E&J Gallo's acquisition of wine brands from Constellation may benefit those who regularly buy those and other Gallo-owned wine brands.

Knowing what experiences a wine went through from grape to glass — including trans-Atlantic travel — might explain why one person tastes a different wine than the one that was rated where it was produced

These writers’ paeans to wine inject vivacious illusions that animate and illuminate lifeless liquids.

Yes, half bottles (375 milliliters, 12.68 ounces) cost slightly more than half the price of full bottles, but a half bottle allows us to experience two different wines in an evening without having to worry about leftovers.

Michael Mondavi lifted a glass of a fine red wine, poured in a hefty slug of ice wate and took a sip. It was the start of his keynote speech at an international wine marketing conference and his topic was the demystification of upscale wines.

Since oxygen is one of the worst enemies of opened bottles, two vital strategies are (a) keep oxygen away from the liquid and (b) refrigerate everything until later — especially red wines. 

Recent changes in the tax law are taking away the incentives for making lower-alcohol wines, and this affects how many glasses of wine a day you should be drinking. 

What constitutes a good value to you could be another person’s splurge but here are some tips for searching for bargain wines. 

Large vineyards generally produce lots of wines that have uniform -- but rarely distinctive -- characteristics in contrast to small blocks that can have exceptional potential to produce classics. 

Definitions of success in wine often relate to how much a wine costs, how hard it is to find, or how many points a reviewer gave it. But if the wine is a varietal, shouldn't success be determined how authentically it conveys the aroma and taste of that varietal?

Clear glass wine bottles can let you admire the color of a wine but exposure to sunlight poses problems.

As with many such preferences we all have, it often relates to how we were reared, going back to our earliest days after we are born -- and perhaps even prior to that.

When setting guidelines for alcohol consumption, it's important to distinquish between beer, wine and spirits, which are all consumed differently. 

 The definition of “wine” really is more complicated than most people realize. In some places, “wine” may refer to something unfamiliar most Californians – and here it gets murky. 

Many details of a wine’s production can help consumers refine their purchasing decisions – and almost none of it fits on a wine bottle back label.

Probably no grape variety has ever been so disparaged and then so appreciated as has Sauvignon Blanc.

Trying to put a single number on the quality of a vintage covering large wine regions is fraught with generalizations that obviate usefulness.

 In mysterious ways, Riesling stands apart from all other grapes. 

 Cheaper versions of the classics that once were good value are disappearing.

The quality of Pedroncelli wines keeps increasing, much faster than the prices. 

Dan Berger looks at how one rare grape -- gamay noir -- can make great wine when people pay attention to its character.

Dan Berger, who met Joe Coulumbe in the 1970s, shares his memories of the founder of Trader Joe's and a foodie before the term was coined.