Lauren Dickinson

In an exciting convergence of technology, CSR, and wine, yesterday Twitter launched it’s first wine, called Fledgling Wine. The 2009 vintage includes a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, sourced from “top-flight California vineyards”, crushed at San Francisco’s DIY custom crush facility Crushpad, and on sale on $25 a bottle, but probably the most interesting thing about the wine is where your money goes. $5 from every bottle will be used to…

If it is too hot this summer to comfortably enjoy your Cab, you can try it in sorbet form now thanks to Wine Cellars sorbet. Although I’ve seen other wine flavored ice creams and sorbets before, this was the first time I’d come across the company designed soley on this idea. The result is a range from riesling, to pinot noir, to rosé or port…all made with actual wine, though…

Good news for the wine industry: a recent survey shows wine has become consumers’ first choice in the US, UK, and Australia when they stay at home, which itself remains a strong trend as people seem reluctant to return to their pre-Crisis levels of spending on eating and drinking out. The bad news for upper tier wineries is that the wines chosen remain on the lower end of the price scale…

After reading a review by Manuel Colmenero Larriba of Lluis Tolosa’s new book España no es California, in which he discusses the issue of attracting tourists to Spanish wine regions, I thought of all the news I have been recieving recently about Napa– new restaurants with celebrity chefs, new state of the art wineries, luxe resort openings, and had mixed feelings on the topic. Spanish tourism is underdeveloped in most of its wine…

How to choose a wine to match your food is an never ending discussion as we continue to search for the best strategy to deal with our ever increasing options. I was recently reading Olly Smith’s The Complete Summer Wine Guide, and while I found it entertaining to read and very helpful in its specificity, after reading the question still lingered- if you’re having fish with a citrus, for example,…

Unlike in the New World, where appellations are still being defined (for example segmentation crazy Napa Valley, who seems to be in constant turmoil, most recently over a new proposed Mayacama Mountain range AVA), the Old World wine producing countries usually look at their wine regulations as being set in stone. For the most part, you are allowed to only grow the same grapes that were approved for your great…

According to a  Reuters report that will surely inspire jealousy in wine loving divers across the world, a group of Swedish divers discovered what is being called the oldest known drinkable Champagne in a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. They believe the bottles are from the late 18th century, and they know it is drinkable because they drank it, apparently with great pleasure. The general theory is the Champagne is…

Having usually been allowed to bring a special bottle of wine if I so chose to a nice restaurant as long as I was willing to pay a corkage fee, it was not until recently that it occurred to me that this could be considered a privilege and not a right. It was not actually until my first day at Uvinum that I learned that this was not a common…

Bottles of cava were popped all over Spain last night to celebrate  the winners of the 2010 World Cup, echoing the fireworks, horns, and shouts that could be heard until late in the night. If you want to join in the spirit you can salute the Spanish team with a glass of Segura Viudas Brut Reserva. However, if you are Dutch, you might well be contemplating what kind of wine goes…

Ordering wine in a restaurant apparently not only creates confusion for the diner (which region? varietal? price? does it go with fish?), but also the sommelier. There’s already been some discussion as to which person at the table should receive the wine list, but now a new debate is emerging thanks to Eric Asimov’s recent article in the New York Times. The question now is, do you want the sommelier…