Northern Italy is an area felicitous for growing white wine grapes because of its cool climate and diversity of mineral-rich soils. 

Water and wine. Take a gander at the globe’s vineyards and you’ll note that many of them—certainly, a good passel of the higher quality ones—are located along riversides.

1 + 1 = 3. Oftentimes, good wine is bad math. I refer to a wine that is a “blend,” one wine made up of a number of wines. In many a blended wine, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

On occasion, you may see “Old Vines” or, in French, “Vieilles Vignes” on a label of wine. On the same occasion, you may note that the price of the wine is high. Wine grapes from “old vines” appear to exact a premium over those made from any younger vines. OK, why?

Aerating or “breathing” red wine often softens or mellows it. At the very least, it refreshes it (it’s been clammed up in that bottle for 2-5 years or more, after all). If you aerate your red wine, by all means don't merely have the server leave the opened bottle on butt end.

Ranking wines with points is not a new phenomenon.

You should keep wine the same way you'd keep a teenager: cool, on its side, in the dark, and free from vibration.

At present, 330 zones throughout the country carry a DOC designation and 73, a higher one, DOCG (DOC + e Garantita, “and guaranteed”). Photo from Alessandro Sacchi at unsplash

The correct glass can have an enormous effect on a wine's aroma and taste.

Some of the great vineyards of the world are hillside vineyards. When it comes to making terrific wine, slopes aren’t for dopes. 

Even if a restaurant wine list is long, it’s certain to be organized in some way or other.

People collect wine in different ways and for different reasons.

Distinct from other areas of Bordeaux, Graves [grahv] is prized for both red and white wines—the latter often as expensive as the former—although, on balance, the more renowned are the red wines.

No commune in the Médoc shares the allure of Pauillac. In it reside three of the fabled five First Growth châteaux of Bordeaux—Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild and Latour. No trio like them exists in the world, much less elsewhere in the region. Photo from Angell Guillèn on unsplash

The wines of Australia are like its people: straightforward, outgoing, exuberant.

Margaux has the distinction, among the Médoc’s six winemaking communes, of being both the largest in area and diverse in style.

This just in—Austria is not Germany.

Sicily and Sardinia (or Sicilia and Sardegna, in Italian) are, in turn, the largest and second-largest islands in the Mediterranean. Both, of course, are two of the 20 regions of Italy, although both are characterfully distinct from the mainland as a whole—and from each other.

Argentina makes outstanding wines with grapes that are far less successful elsewhere. Photo from Matt Bloch on unsplash

Pomerol, at a mere 2,000 acres in vine, is Bordeaux’s smallest red wine district, but it produces wines more highly sought-after than some of the most famous in all of Bordeaux. Photo from Elliot Paris on unsplash