Gus Clemens on Wine explores and explains the world of wine in simple, humorous, fun posts

Right now, many in the wine world are freaked about the decline in wine drinking. Advice: relax, take a deep, cleansing breath. A nice, chilled rosé also might help. Wine is a lifestyle choice. By their very nature, lifestyle choices are always in chaotic, often irrational flux. Examples from the wine world: • Merlot was a big thing at the end of the last century. Women in particular enjoyed it be...

Ah, it was a heady wine time while it lasted. Wine enjoyed more than 50 years of vineyard and winery growth, more than 50 years of improving quality, more than 50 years of consistent year-over-year market expansion. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end. We’d sing and dance forever and a day. Reality: nothing lasts forever. Pendulums swing both ways, as the wine world is pain...

Tannins are natural and essential to wine. They also are wine’s most misunderstood element. Even wine scientists admit they do not fully understand tannins. One expert called tannins a “chemical train wreck.” Let’s explore. What do we know? Tannins are natural organic and phenolic compounds found in almost all plants. They provide protection as a chemical deterrent against plant-eating animals and...

Wine writers freely admit that trying to describe how a wine tastes is the classic “like dancing about architecture” folly. But amid the thousands of wine choices, people still want guidance. Even if the guidance has flaws, it still beats the “even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes” method. There are three commonly used terms in wine reviews that cause controversy—OK, more than three, but...

After 17 years of communicating to readers as a newspaper wine columnist with a side gig online, the ground shifted, the medium and the stylistic conventions of the message changed. As a newspaper writer, the style leaned toward formality and objectivity, even though a newspaper column is more personal than a formal newspaper story. For instance, in the beginning of the column’s life, when I expre...

This is the weekly column I get it. Using words to describe what a wine tastes like is like dancing about architecture. But wine writers do it anyway, and wine readers read it anyway. Part of the reason: something is better than nothing. And, to be fair, the typical word salad does convey a rough idea of what to expect when you pull the cork or twist the Stelvin closure. Cherry, raspberry, plum fo...

This is the weekly column What makes a wine sweet and what makes a wine taste sweet? As you might expect in the convoluted world of wine, the two are not the same. In the wine world, things are not always what they seem. Wine sweetness is determined by “residual sugar” or RS. There are other mechanisms both artificial and natural that give you the sensation of sweetness, but wine’s definition of s...

This is the weekly column Revolution and evolution in wine in the 17th and 18th centuries set up the sparkling wine world we enjoy today. Christopher Merret’s experiments in secondary fermentation. Dom Pérignon’s vineyard and winemaking improvements. English breakthroughs in glass making. But that is not the whole story by a long shot. It took a young widow with no business experience, but with mo...

This is the weekly column Wine has been evolving for at least 8,000 years, and so it goes in the world of sparkling wine. First, the basics. Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon invented sparkling wine, exclaiming: “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars?” Nice story, certainly not true. The earliest reference to the Dom Pérignon quote occurred two centuries after the monk’s death. In truth, during Dom Pér...

This is the weekly column Summmer-time, and sippin’ rosé is easy… fish are jumpin’… and the cotton is high. OK, bastardizing George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess intro may be a déclassé way to introduce a high summer homage to the pink-blush stepchild of both red and white wine. Times change. “One of these mornings you’re going to rise up singing, then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the s...

This is the weekly column It is high summer in the Northern Hemisphere. What wine fits into the zeitgeist of pools splashing with bikini-clad frolickers slathered in sun screens, outdoor cooking, indoor binge watching movies on a wide screen while the AC heroically soldiers on? A surprising star shines bright: sparkling wine. First, sparkling is the wine best served around 40 degrees, lighter vers...

This is the weekly column As someone who loves writing and wine, it was a quick and easy call 17 years ago when the local newspaper publisher asked me to write about wine in his publication. It has been a happy 17 years with too many joys to mention. But there are downsides. Tasting a lot of wine is part of the job, and that can become tedious. That is especially true of boring, cookie-cutter wine...

This is the weekly column People ask what was the most expensive wine I ever received for review. I think their question reflects curiosity about what wine I get to review and how does expensive wine taste. From the beginning, my work was directed at wine that people could purchase in a local store, or at least online. So reviewing 30-year-old wines costing four figures was out of the question, ev...

This is the weekly column Vintage and location are keys to understanding wine in Texas, which now produces the fifth most wine in the United States. Texas wine growers must contend with unpredictable and extreme weather events, making each Texas vintage an adventure. Therein lies both the magic and the challenge, because weather and weather events dramatically impact each year’s Texas wine and wha...

This is the weekly column To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. In June of 2025, such a time has come for my wine writing adventure. In the summer of 2008, the editor of my local newspaper, the San Angelo Standard-Times , challenged me to write a wine column that would entertain and inform the average wine buyer. The “buyer” part was important because the week...

This is the weekly column We know wine is magnificent paired with food, enhancing qualities of both. Wine and food also can be a welcomed pairing when dealing with the vicissitudes or triumphs of life. Examples: • Emotionally wrought day with friends or family. Pair movie theatre popcorn and a bottle of buttery chardonnay and a stupid comedy movie. • Signal success at work or in your family life a...

This is the weekly column As May flowers fade, the more stern months of summer saunter into our lives and our wine drinking regimen. Time to lay down big, bold reds and celebrate the buys of summer. Rosés. Lighter whites. Lighter reds, maybe chilled, maybe even with an ice cube floating in the glass. Wine punches like sangria come into play, so refreshing on a warm picnic, backyard soiree day. Sto...

This is the weekly column Cava is Spanish sparkling wine made using the traditional method developed in Champagne, right? Not so simple. In 1872, Spain’s first méthode champenoise sparkling wine was made in the Penedès region of Catalonia, the steadfastly independent northeastern area of Spain with Barcelona as its capitol. France insists traditional method sparkling wine can only be called Champa...

This is the weekly column The wine industry faces the first headwinds it has faced in half a century. Inevitably things get snippy in the previously collegial competition among makers. When the rising wine tide raised all boats, generosity and altruism were easy. Comity expected. Neighbor-helping-neighbor commonplace. Now sales are in decline. Competition thins the herd. Makers search for an edge,...

This is the weekly column Mother’s Day easily can be promoted as “Buy Mom Some Wine Day.” There is the cliché joke: “buy mom wine because you are the reason she drinks.” But there is a less jejune reason to do the right thing—moms who enjoy alcohol drinks overwhelmingly prefer wine over spirits and beer. According to polls over several years, women make up some 60% of wine buyers. Gallup in 2021 r...

This is the weekly column Wine has been a staple of food and culture for 8,000 years. It is not going away. But the wine industry’s exhilarating days of the past 50 years are fading. Let’s explore. Gino Colangelo is the founder of Colangelo & Partners, a leading PR force in the wine, food, and spirits industry worldwide. I asked him about the state of the wine world today. Gino Colangelo What are...

This is the weekly column Answers to common wine questions: • What is the difference between my home refrigerator and a wine refrigerator? Your home frig’s internal temperature is around 35 degrees, while a wine frig is between 50 and 60. Your home frig is designed to extract humidity, a potential danger to wine corks. A wine frig strives to have a cork-friendly 45-60 percent humidity. Your home f...

This is the weekly column Some answers to common questions: • What does “fruity” and “sweet” mean in a wine review? They are two different concepts. Fruity or “fruit-forward” wine is one where fruit flavors dominate over other flavors such as vanilla, oak toast, minerality. Sweet wine has perceptible residual sugar because not all of the grape sugar was converted into alcohol or sugar was added af...

This is the weekly column Wine has an image problem that is both its biggest asset and its Achilles heal. Wine is the most complex alcohol drink. If you examine wine’s consumer base, wine drinkers tend to be older, better educated, upper-middle class or above. The popular image: wine drinkers are old, snotty, rich people. Not an ideal demo if you are a marketeer striving to expand your winery’s cu...

This is the weekly column Followers of my wine writing know I do not do negative wine reviews. I consider myself a curator rather than a critic. If you want snark about a particular wine, others are happy to satisfy you. Why this conscious choice? There is limited space and time in my newspaper columns, online posts, podcasts—and my life, for that matter. I choose to spend that allotment on subjec...