The Chicago Tribune on why you don't have to spend a lot of money on a fancy wine bottle opener. "For me, there is nothing better than a simple fold-up "waiter's friend," the age-old opener that looks like a pocket knife."
The Telegraph on how French winemaker hijacked Spanish wine tankers. "Cheers erupted as around around 150 furious vintners from the Aude and Pyénées-Orientales departments unscrewed the cap on two tankers at Le Boulou, close to the Mediterranean town of Perpignan and less than ten miles from Spain, and emptied their contents onto the motorway on Monday. " Alder Yarrow has his say.
The New York Times on opening multiple bottles of wine at one time. "You can open two bottles of wine. That way you can drink one while the other one is open to the air, which apparently does something good to wine according to wine people (I don’t know for sure because I’m tired of listening to them)."
Inforum on New Mexico wine. "The audacious individual who dared to move into this desert-like territory to establish this very successful winery was a Champagne winemaker from France named Gilbert Gruet."
The Press Democraton the ups and downs of Zinfandel. "Today, it is still possible to find big concentrated styles of zinfandel distinguished by jammy fruit aromas and flavors. But the trend is slowly moving away from jam jar fruitiness and toward more restrained zins with nuanced fruit flavors, in better balance with alcohols that are still pushing 14.5 percent and above."
Forbes on Joseph Carr and the wine brand Josh. "His business model is called a “négociant,” a French term for a vintner who purchases another grower’s grapes; this practice has been around almost as long as wine itself."
Zachary Sussman in Punch on gendered wine marketing. "I just can’t figure out why this kind of type-casting is still happening in 2016. Is it lazy marketing, or do these gender-based messages actually work?"
Winefolly on the trouble with white label wines. "The most powerful benefit to white label wines is their affordability, as well as the the reason why there’s hope for improvement (see below)."
The Drinks Business reports that Burgundy wine legend Louis Latour has died.
The Wine Enthusiast on West Coast somms turned winemakers.
