Fine Syrah from France’s Northern Rhône Valley is one of the world’s greatest wines, but the sad fact is that...
Northern Rhône Sweet Spot: Saint-Joseph
read more
Michael Franz
Sicily: Front and Center for 2020
My year ahead will include a major immersion in the wines of Sicily, which have improved so broadly and rapidly that this...
Middleweight Greats
In any category that includes lots of different things, those falling in the middle often get overlooked, simply because they...
Zig When They Zag: Nebbiolo and Arneis from Roero
Everybody who knows anything about investing knows to run contrary to the crowd: Sell when everybody else is buying and...
Pago de la Jaraba, La Mancha DO (Spain) 2018
I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you thought I’d lost my mind for according 95 points for a $29 dollar...
La Mancha Mind-Changer: Pago de la Jaraba
Among the many wonderful things about wine is that so-called “established facts” are only established until somebody...
Cantina Andrian, Alto Adige DOC (Italy) Pinot Bianco 2019
Still very tart and tight at this juncture, this wine is quite bright and refreshing, but also displays impressive weight...
Isaac Fernandez Selections, Rueda DO (Castilla y León, Spain) Verdejo 2020
This wine is always very good, and I’ve placed multiple vintages of it on the wine lists of restaurants for which I...
A Promising New Player in the Walla Walla AVA: Echolands Winery
New wineries get established pretty regularly in the New World, but I’m much less regular about actually reading the press...
Best of the Best from 2019
I hope you feel as fortunate as I do at the end of another calendar year. After tasting more than 9,000 wines,...
Wine Cool
Temperature is a crucial factor in wine appreciation, yet it is a factor that is insufficiently appreciated by many...
Recognizing the Wine World’s Fastest-Rising Star, with 25 Years of Retrospect
I began writing about wine in 1993, first for The Washington Times and then, eight months later, for The Washington Post, where...