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

This is the weekly column Spring is here. What wines are especially suited for the warming days and the return of plants from dormancy? There are many happy choices. Bright acidity, floral aromatics, freshness, lightness, and lower alcohol are hallmarks of wines that pair with the dynamic character of the season. Here are some classic suggestions: • Sauvignon blanc. New Zealand efforts burst with...

This is the weekly column Sixty years ago, Texas wine was a curious microdot in the wine world. Two Texas Tech professors piddled around with a few grapevines, originally intending to make grape jelly to supplement their income. “Doc” McPherson, a chemistry professor, and Robert Reed, a horticultural specialist, wondered if the Texas High Plains around Lubbock could diversify regional crops beyond...

This is the weekly column It used to be simple. Good wine had a natural cork. Cheap wine had a screw top. Not any more. The 1990s wine boom stressed cork production and engendered an increase in “cork taint” caused by the chemical compound trichloroanisole (TCA). By some measures, 5% or more of cork-closed bottles exhibited the musty, wet cardboard aromas of cork taint. The wine industry responded...

This is the weekly column I find Perplexity a useful AI tool researching wine and other topics. In an act of hubris, I challenged it to evaluate Gus Clemens on Wine. Today’s column addresses some of the Perplexity results. You can generate your own evaluation of the column at the site, or evaluate yourself if you have an online presence and the nerve to so venture. Here I address Perplexity’s prin...

This is the weekly column By best estimate, there are some 10,000 different grape varieties in the world. If you tasted a different one every day, it would take you more than 27 years to complete the task. Thankfully, the world of wine is confined to a smaller number. About 6,000 grapes belong to the principal fine wine species Vitis vinifera. Only about 1,300 are actively used in winemaking. Only...

This is the weekly column It is a new year and there are sweeping changes in wine bottle sizes in America. Yep, wine makers and glass blowers have a whole new tool kit to entice you into experiencing whatever elixir they have conjured from grape juice and yeast and wood and whatever else the white-coated wine wizards have procured. Last year your bottle choices were limited. Wine could only be sol...

This is the weekly column Valentine’s Day cometh, time for expressing love and affection, although one can argue that should be on your to-do list every day. The celebration has roots as far back as ancient Rome. It was then called Lupercalia, a day dedicated to Lupercus, the god of shepherds, and aimed at promoting health and fertility. As do many celebrations, Lupercalia-Valentine’s links to sea...

This is the weekly column Wine columnists are expected to have opinions, and I have many. Here are four to rile up readers. • Stemless wine glasses. They do hold wine and they are harder to break and easier to clean than traditional stemware, but they also commit three cardinal sins for wine enjoyment. First, you have to hold the bowl to use them. That means fingerprint smudges on the glass, dimin...

This is the weekly column Wine labels and wine reviews may include various references to wine blending. Some are specific and informative. Others are distinctions without a difference. Let’s explore the most common blending terms. • Blend. Broadest term. It includes combining various fruits or vinifications to create, develop, or enhance a wine using more than one grape variety and/or vintage. It...

This is the weekly column Blending is essential to making some of the world’s most iconic wines. We explored the several ways to blend last week. This week, specific wines created by blending. • Champagne can be a blend of pinot noir, chardonnay, and pinot meunier. It often is a blend of different vintages. Champagne houses aim to produce a distinctive, consistent product year after year, and blen...

This is the weekly column In general, wines can be divided into varietals and blends. This being wine, it is not so black-and-white simple. Let’s explore. A varietal wine has a single variety of grape on the label. That means the named grape is the predominant grape used to make the wine. In the U.S., the named grape must make up at least 75% of the wine. Oregon, however, requires at least 90% of...

This is the weekly colum Wine scores. Oh, my. On one level, ridiculous. On another level, essential to wine’s success over the past half century. Some observations. Anyone who ever took a test or got a report card in grade school immediately understands a wine score. Robert Parker was the most visible person to grasp that, and a parade of imitators reinforced it. Many were based on a 100-point sca...

This is the weekly column Happy New Year. We survived another sun circumnavigation. Sunlight grows slowly longer. Spring rebirth looms over the sere, cold-swept horizon. Endure these last temperature-challenging months, and we emerge into warm, bright shining mornings. Two wine types provide solace during this frost-dusted interlude: Porto and sherry. Porto and sherry are fortified wines produced...

This is the weekly colum This column runs on Wednesdays in most markets—Christmas Day in 2024. If you have not secured your wine before now, no chance today. We can, however, look forward to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Sparkling wines are stars of New Year celebrations. Statistics indicate roughly 25 percent of all Champagne is sold between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Something like 360 m...

This is the weekly colum With Christmas/holiday feasts coming soon, what is the ideal alcohol percentage for wine paired with food? The answer is 10-14%. Why? U.S. labeling laws are loony, so the ABV amount on the label can be inaccurate, but this is a discussion of wine-food pairing quality not bureaucratic gobbledygook. Lower alcohol wines allow the grapes to show off and complement food rather...

This is the weekly column If you have a wine lover on your Christmas/holiday gift list, some recommendations. Wine always is appreciated. Gift wine they enjoy, a proclivity you likely know, but if you do not, ask. If you are trying to disguise your gifting intentions, there are many clever ways to inquire. Wine lovers are never hesitant to discuss wine. There are almost infinite options depending...

This is the weekly colum Nebbiolo is the extraordinary grape closely identified with the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy and particularly with the region’s great wines: Barolo and Barbaresco. Let’s explore. The origins of the nebbiolo name is a bit foggy. It likely derives from the Italian word “nebbia” or the Piedmontese word “nebia.” Both mean “fog”—a reference to fogs that come to the Lan...

This is the weekly column Wine is in turmoil. People are turning to alcohol alternatives. Red wine sales are down, white and rosé are up. French and Italians and Spanish are drinking less wine. There is a glut of wine. What?! This scenario was improbable just a few years ago when wine world was surfing on the wave of the global wine boom. Old world drank almost all they produced, China guzzled, U....

This is the weekly column Thanksgiving is the great American gastronomic holiday. Halloween is for foolishness, costumes, and candy. Christmas is for worship, family, and unseemly lust for gaudily wrapped material goods (somewhat antithetical to the Christian origin of the holiday). Thanksgiving is the quintessential harvest feast. Turkey and ham and cranberry sauce and corn on the cob and cornbre...

This is the weekly colum It takes two to four centuries to grow the oak tree for a wine barrel. Then, after tree harvest, four, usually more, years to season the wood and the staves. Finally, it is time to turn the staves into a wine barrel. Staves are planed into the correct shape, tapered and beveled to fit exactly together. A master cooper—the barrel maker—arranges 30-32 staves in a circle held...

This is the weekly column Wine is an agricultural product. Hardly an earth-shattering revelation. But consider its scope. Not just wine vines, as essential as they may be, but in many cases—trees. Wine and wood have a marriage dating back millions of years. Wine vines are tree climbers, a relationship accelerated after the astroid-Armageddon when 75% of all plant and animals species became extinct...

This is the weekly column Some facts and trivia to lighten your mood as we prepare for the horrors of “fall back” when the government gives back the imaginary hour it stole from us on the second Sunday in March. • Do heavier glass bottles indicate higher quality wine? Glass weight does not affect wine quality. But there has long been a marketing illusion that better wines come in heavier bottles,...

This is the weekly column Halloween is next week, but if you are giving wine advice it’s best to give your audience some time to act on it. First, I know of no decent pairing of wine with treacly sweet trick-or-treat candy. With somewhat less sugary candy, you can go with light, sweet wines. Wine must be at least as sweet as the candy. If the treat is dark chocolate, you have real options. Dark ch...

This is the weekly column October begins the 17th year of this wine column. Reflections. • Quality wine is made by grape farmers in a vineyard, not by lab coats in a winery. When this column started, I could enjoy mass production wines manipulated by oak and tartaric acid and Mega Red. As years and tasting passed, my palate grew to more appreciate wines truer to place and variety. Supermarket mass...

This is the weekly column Scare headlines: “Drinking any alcohol is a cancer risk.” Well, okay, the question is how much of a risk? In this discussion, remember the adage popularized by Mark Twain: “Three types of lies. Lies. Damn lies. And statistics.” Stories about cancer risk with alcohol often can be taken with a grain of salt. No question alcohol can put you at a greater risk of cancer. But h...