This one is pretty straightforward, is the wine balanced on the palate? If any one aspect stands out further than another (very acidic, super fruity, highly noticeable alcohol, etc.) the wine is not in balance, or it is not a balanced wine. If everything feels in congruent harmony,…
Balance
It’s Rosé Season! (Like You Didn’t Know That Already Though…)
Our HBIC Jessica was recently published alongside other industry leaders speaking on the next wave of Rosé wines, non-Provençal. What should we expect to see, and where from? While this incredible wine lifestyle piece is hidden behind a paywall on the original site, we will recreate it here…
Idaho Wine: Then & Now
And by “then” we mean somewhere around 2-9 million years ago. Yes, that’s pretty standard if you want to think about the terms of grapes and terroir. Well, consider it “soil construction” of sorts. No volcano that exploded last year (or in the last 1,000 years) is laying…
The Wine Regions of Idaho
Aside from the few established AVAs in the state, it’s important to think of Idaho wines under the guise of “regions” – geographical areas outside of the standard AVA lines we think of wine as conforming to in areas like California, Oregon, and Washington. It’s a relatively new…
The AVAs of Idaho
Idaho wineries fall into what one can see as 3 categories: Non-appelated wineries Appellation wineries (including Sub-Appellation wineries) Urban Wineries Really, this only speaks to the location of the winery itself relative to the AVA boundaries. It is not reflective of the wine they make being or not…
Idaho Wine Facts & Statistics!
(image from idahowines.org) To date, there are over 60 wineries and cideries in the state of Iowa. For reference, there are over 400 wineries in Napa alone. So what does that mean? In Napa, over 400 businesses are vying for your attention in a small – very small…
June is All About Idaho!
The new frontier of West Coast wines isn’t an obscure Oregon coastal region, or some new valley in California. It’s Idaho. You read that right: Idaho. Many young-and-eager alongside older-and-wiser winemakers continue to flush out eastward of Oregon and Washington into the western half of Idaho seeking new…
Meritage
Wine Term: Meritage First things first, the way to pronounce this is as though it rhymes with “Heritage.” This is a creation of California winemakers, and it’s a blended red wine, not a varietal wine nor variety of grape. To classify as a Meritage wine, the blend must…
Legs
No matter what your spouse claims about that bottle that was there last night – but is somehow missing now – it did not grow legs and walk away. So what do the wine geeks mean when they speak to a wine’s legs? It’s the way the wine…