What makes a wine vegan? After all, wine is made from grapes, not beef. Where animal products do come into play is during the fining process. After fermentation, most wine is filtered and fined, which is basically removing all the sediment and leftover dead yeast cells and such from the fermentation process. Most winemakers use animal products like egg white or isinglass, but vegan wines are made with non-animal products such as clay.
Want to find out if your favorite brand is vegan? It's not always easy. Winemakers aren't required to disclose ingredients like the information on Oreo cookie labels, so you have to do some nosing around. One great source is the Barnivore Vegan Wine & Beer Guide, a community project listing of vegan and non-vegan wines. Cheers!
Autumn officially arrives next week. Labor Day has come and gone, and we've traded our barbecue tongs for pots of soup and our shorts for sweaters on chilly nights. But before you put away all your summer wines, consider this: Many of them, including Sauvignon Blanc, won't taste oh-so-fresh by the time you're in the mood for them again. Some of the best Sauv Blancs from the Loire Valley and Bordeaux can age for several years, but most inexpensive bottles are meant to be drunk ASAP.
What happens when you brave an old bottle? I tried a 2005 recently and the first word that came to mind was dank. It was like tossing a salad, forgetting about it for a week and then trying to eat around the decaying pieces. Blech. So here's my PSA for this week: drink all your unquestionably delicious Sauvignon Blancs now, before they become questionable -- the 2007s from the northern hemisphere and the 2008s from the southern hemisphere. Soon, the 2009s from New Zealand, Chile and South Africa will be on shelves, and in the spring, the 2009s from California, France and Italy will arrive.
After the jump, Sauvignon Blancs I loved, and a question for you: Which Sauv Blanc region steals your heart?
Even in Louisville, Ky., a betting town where success is measured in wins, places and shows, few gamblers would have bet that master sommelier study partners Brett Davis and Scott Harper would pass their diploma exam on the same day.
The local boys defied the odds by becoming the only two test-takers out of 38 to pass the prestigious test last month, making them the first master sommeliers in the state of Kentucky. Harper's workplace, the Bristol Bar and Grille, will fete their achievement at a wine dinner next week.
With fewer than 200 wine professionals worldwide having earned the master sommelier title since it was established 30 years ago, two friends holding matching diplomas counts as a curiosity. Earning those diplomas at the same time is considered extraordinary.
"It's very unusual, very rare," confirms Davis, who's in the wine import business.
Each week, we round up the top food articles we've spied Web-wide. This week, a special edition of our own bloggers' primo pieces from elsewhere on the Web.
Ubuntu Sommelier Daniel Sarao Photo: Michelle Branton
At Ubuntu, Napa Valley's acclaimed vegetarian restaurant slash yoga studio, it falls to wine director and general manager Daniel Sarao to find harmony between the lush bounty of on-site gardens and a vino list sparkling with biodynamic sips.
The son of Italian immigrants who taught him an appreciation for wine, Sarao put himself through college and grad school working at restaurants, cutting short a trajectory towards a liberal arts Ph.D. for the life of a full-time oenophile. We chatted with him about the myths around pairing wine with veggies (yes, you can drink red!), the wonders of caramelizing and five inexpensive summer sippers to pair with grilled veggies.
Are you a vegetarian? I am not a vegetarian. The chef is not a vegetarian and neither is the owner. But we believe that vegetables can stand on their own. We are breaking the stereotype.
How much of what you serve comes from your garden? Right now we get about 75 to 80 percent of our ingredients from [our garden]. Our goal is to get almost everything from there. It makes an amazing difference. Squash and peppers are [in season] right now.
Learn more, plus five great wines for under $25 to pair with vegetable dishes, after the jump.
In just two years as the sommelier and wine director at New York's world-renowned Le Bernardin restaurant, 37-year-old Aldo Sohm has become a wine world heavyweight, having been recognized as "Best Sommelier in the World" in 2008 and earlier this month for "Best Wine Service" at the James Beard Awards. Trained in his native Austria, Sohm came to the United States to improve on his then "dumpy" English so he could better compete at wine competitions. We caught up with Sohm this morning to chat about the unwritten rule of pairing fish with white wine, which vino goes well with grilled salmon and that other reason why he now lives in America.
How did you become a sommelier?
Ever since I was little I had a thing of smelling food and wines. At first I didn't really like wine when I entered the industry. This was [when I was ] 16 or 17. People in the restaurant would ask me what you could recommend and I didn't know and thought this was embarrassing. [Then] I went on a wine trip with my father -- he invited me. I was 20 and I saw it, and it was kind of interesting and just went from there. You said you moved to the United States to improve your English, but I get the sense there was another reason?
Austrians love to complain. I hate to complain so I figured it is easier to change a country than to change myself.
More about pairing rules -- and how to break them -- after the jump.
Chantelle Pabros, a sommelier at Chicago's L20, is widely considered a rising star of the wine universe. Entrenched among oenophiles since leaving high school, at a mere 26 she has worked alongside world-renowned talent including chef Laurent Gras at his seafood-centric eatery. Though Chantelle has few hard and fast rules about pairing wine with food, she offered a couple tips as we head into prime grilling season. We caught up with her this afternoon to talk burgers and vino.
Do you think burgers and wine go together? Yes, absolutely. Though we don't have burgers [at L20], I like pairing wine with them. There is this place here called Kuma's Corner. We normally drink beer there, but I am thinking about the possibilities of wines with their burgers.
How does one go about pairing the two? With pairing, things that you think would go well don't always go. It's trial and error. I start by thinking about the classic burger, cooked medium rare with really fresh lettuce, tomato, onion and a really intense mustard. Chantelle's five under-$25 burger-friendly wines after the jump.
Some topics don't quite strike me as candidates for online education. Clay modeling. Flying lessons. Childbirth. I might have put wine there, too (since there's no substitute for learning by tasting, after all!) but now a new UC Irvine Extension course may have changed my mind.
The course's main advantages:
1. You don't have to actually go anywhere or talk to anyone 2. If you accidentally taste too much, there's no driving involved 3. If wine makes you anxious, you can learn about it in private
OK, I'm being a little flip. The course is actually interesting. It's called "A Sommelier's Secret Guide to the Wine List: Wine and Food Galore," and it teaches students how to ID value wine on a wine list and pair it with food. If you know nothing about wine and are suddenly entertaining clients on a huge expense budget (though who but AIG has those anymore?) this might be the class for you.
According to a recent Los Angeles Times story, sommeliers are reporting a downshift in consumers' "sweet spot" -- i.e., the price range where they feel most comfortable spending. Wine's sweet spot (in LA, anyway) used to be around $80 a bottle; now it's closer to $50-60.
We all know that because of restaurant markups, it's hard to get anything even drinkable for under $20 (consider that a $20 restaurant wine is likely $7 to $8 at retail). If you're like me and consider wine a nonnegotiable part of the dining experience, how much are you willing to pay? Vote in the poll below.
Scrolling through my daily Thrillist email blast, I found a tout for "Sommelier Wine Glasses." Ever feigning an earnest and legitimate interest/knowledge of wine, I clicked through, only to find this truly stellar stemware.
These kegger-cups-cum-wine-glasses are ideally suited for people like me who pretend to care about Viticulture, but are actually throwin' back jugs of Carlo Rossi.
Just remember, these are hand-blown glass, so try and refrain from playing Wine Pong. (Or worse, Flip Cup.)
Some of us, through work, pleasure, or other pursuits, have been fortunate enough to become quite familiar with a variety of wines. If you consider yourself a seasoned wine taster or your knowledge borders on that of a sommelier, then this probably isn't for you. However, I've heard from a large number of people over the years who really have no idea which wines may go well with their meals, and quite often their insecurities will cause them not to buy any at all. Now I'm sure we can all agree that is a real tragedy.
As many of you know, proper food/wine pairing creates a whole new dimension of flavor while dining, and Wine That Loves was created just for this purpose. Using a team of sommeliers, winemakers, and chefs, they have developed a series of wines created to enhance the flavors of the foods you may eat every day.
So far they have created Wine That Loves: Pasta with Tomato Sauce, Roasted Chicken, Pizza, Grilled Steak, and Grilled Salmon. Though designed to enhance the flavor of those particular meals, they also state that the wines can simply be enjoyed on their own as well. If anyone has tried their products yet, we'd love to hear your thoughts.
On the day of the big turkey feast, sommeliers have a serious job -- pairing wines with the wide range of flavors, fragrances, and textures of a Thanksgiving meal. However, in the post-Thanksgiving afterglow, sommeliers have a chance to let loose, having fun with pairings with the natural post-Tgiving food choices, which are either 1) Turkey, The Remix, or 2) something completely opposite of anything related to Thanksgiving (I eat sushi for five days straight). The LA Times finds out what kind of quirky, non-traditional picks they make to go with leftovers, or not to go with anything and just to drink. Just a few from their list:
2000 Baltieri "Sortilegio" Amarone della Valpolicella
When you're out to dinner with your friends, ordering wine can be fun. You have discussions about what to order, negotiate how much you want to spend, and even poke fun at each other by threatening to order "white zin."
However, in a business situation, ordering wine is a whole different ball-game. In fact, it's not a game at all. If you are wining and dining a client and are in charge, then take charge, and keep in mind a few guidelines. Forbes has consulted with some of America's top sommeliers and "The rules for handling wine at an important business dinner are pretty much commonsense and not very different from the rules for any kind of successful entertaining--be prepared, plan ahead and use the resources at your disposal." Here are their tips in brief:
Call ahead to the restaurant
Don't dawdle with the list
Think back to examples of wines you actually liked
Go for the lowest common denominator
Go with what you know
Dont' start too big with a Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel
Held in the Théâtre des Champs Elysées (that's a slightly famous building in Paris) a Norwegian, Robert Lie, Head Sommelier of the Bagatelle Restaurant in Oslo won the 10th Trophée Ruinart du Meilleur Sommelier d'Europe on the 18th June.
Paolo Basso of Switzerland came 2nd with a Frenchma, Eric Zwiebel coming in 3rd. The Trophée Ruinart is held every two years with the first in 1988. Sommeliers from 34 countires took part this year. Each has to undergo a series of tests - wine tastings, food and wine matching, champagne serving and a theory paper followed by another wine tasting, decanting, selling wine and using the internet. It is a prestigous award and not at all easy!
From the mouths of the experts, the San Francisco Chronicle has some tips on how to order wine in a restaurant. The article also has each sommelier's two choices for one bottle under $35 and one bottle over $35.
Just in time for Mother's Day brunch this weekend, rosé wines are on the testing block. The Chronicle picks their Top 16, and four of them won three out of four stars (***), and all of them are under $15: 2005 Bieler Pere et Fils Sabine Vin de Pays des Maures Rosé is only $10, 2005 Domaine de Pellehaut Harmonie de Gascogne Rosé for even less at $9, 2005 Domaine de Fontsainte Corbieres Gris de Gris for $13 and 2005 Lawson's Dry Hills Marlborough Pinot Rosé at $15.
A Croque Mom-sieur will go well with those rosés at brunch. The cheese of the week is Silver Mountain, a cow's milk cheese made by Bravo Farms in the Central Valley.
Sake is on the rise. Beau Timken of Hayes Valley's True Sake offers tips to enjoying the Japanese wine. There's also a recipe for a pasta that pairs well with one of the sakes.
Some of us, through work, pleasure, or other pursuits, have been fortunate enough to become quite familiar with a variety of wines. If you consider yourself a seasoned wine taster or your knowledge borders on that of a sommelier, then this probably isn't for you. However, I've heard from a large number of people over the years who really have no idea which wines may go well with their meals, and quite often their insecurities will cause them not to buy any at all. Now I'm sure we can all agree that is a real tragedy. 
On the day of the big turkey feast, sommeliers have a serious job -- pairing wines with the wide range of flavors, fragrances, and textures of a Thanksgiving meal. However, in the post-Thanksgiving afterglow, sommeliers have a chance to let loose, having fun with pairings with the natural post-Tgiving food choices, which are either 1) Turkey, The Remix, or 2) something completely opposite of anything related to Thanksgiving (I eat sushi for five days straight). The LA Times finds out 
When you're out to dinner with your friends, ordering wine can be fun. You have discussions about what to order, negotiate how much you want to spend, and even poke fun at each other by threatening to order "white zin."
Held in the Théâtre des Champs Elysées (that's a slightly famous building in Paris) a Norwegian, Robert Lie, Head Sommelier of the Bagatelle Restaurant in Oslo won the 10th Trophée Ruinart du Meilleur Sommelier d'Europe on the 18th June. 
From the mouths of the experts, the San Francisco Chronicle has some tips on how 
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