Wine for Normal People

For this mini review, we break it down on a hybrid grape that has crazy descriptions. The review is solid but this is a “must listen” because M.C. Ice created a musical masterpiece at the end! Click here to listen. A weird grape, called either Scheurebe or Sämling 88 (”Seedling 88,” the name of the vine), it’s a cross between Riesling and a wild German grape. It was created by Dr. ...

This week we’ve got a different kind of show for you! No M.C. Ice, but instead a terrific interview with winemaker David “Merf” Merfeld from Nor...

You know, if we can get to it relatively easily (i.e., it’s in the U.S.), we’ve got to visit a place before we do a podcast on it. You asked, and we went! This week: Washington State in the northeaste...

This week we have a hit parade of secret gems: the 9 wines you could sort of substitute for super expensive ones. A great topic provided by a listener! Since we hit the list pretty quickly, here are the wines and their analogues… Expensive Wine Less Expensive Analogue Brunello di Montalcino Rosso di Montalcino Oregon Pinot Noir, fruitier Burgundy New Zealand Pinot [...]

As we’re making our way through edits for this week’s podcast, we did a Wine Chat/Mini-cast to fill in. This is on a very important issue that I think is going to shake up the wine critic world permanently. Kind of a big deal. Here’s a link to the Decanter.com story that covered this:

We have a lot of regions and countries to cover in the future, but since the concept of terroir began with and is defined by Burgundy, we really needed to get on it! Since this podcast is 100% based on the “A Primer on Burgundy: The 5 Things You Need To Know” I’m not going to do show notes&h...

I recently did a review of the wines from Smith-Madrone, a small winery located on Spring Mountain  in the Napa Valley. If you read it you know I loved the Cabernet and thought the Riesling was good but I hated the Chardonnay. Well, the winery contacted me and said they thought the bottle I reviewed didn’t sound like their wine. They sent a new one and sure enough, it was true. So we did an audio review of the wine with ...

I love a good scandal. So this week’s podcast covers the best of the last 30 years. From Champagne to a corrupt Canadian wine critic to Austria’s downfall in the 80s, we discuss the wrongdoing of some big time players in the industry. Then we move on to the fun stories of a world of which we’ll never be a part: the wealthy, elite collectors of rare, ol...

In this podcast we cover Chile, a country with some really great wines and some very interesting history behind it in the wine world. After a retraction and re-giving of thanks to a listener we hit the main topic. We discuss how this long, narrow country’s isolation has led to a bunch of developments — great for wine, less good for politics We talk about the climate, geography, and main grapes

This week’s podcast features some new stuff. A listener question for M.C. Ice challenges him about why he bothers to shop for wine. Then we get into the business of wine in business. In the corporate events and speaking engagements I do, I always address wine business etiquette and this podcast is a compilation of the tips I give and questions I’ve answered. The ti...