Perhaps you’ve recently had an “Aha!” wine—the swirl, sniff, and sip that paused the spinning world. Maybe you’ve long ago fallen down the wine rabbit hole, and then started following the wine event calendars at your local wine shops. Or maybe you have ten years of wine geekery under your belt, and have participated in a monthly wine […]
In-smell
I have a bias. I’ve long held this inclination, but have recently worked to expand my awareness. New in . . . sight has affirmed my bias—no more shame. I care way more about the aromatics of a wine than any other factor. From the nose we can gauge nuance, complexity, layers, intrigue, depth, density, purity, specific […]
How to Lose a Sale
Step one: Pull the cork on your winery’s award-winning Pinot Noir. Step two: Fail to test the wine for flaws prior to pouring or test the wine and fail to notice flaws. Step three: Pour two-thirds of the bottle to other tasting room guests (title shift, “How to Lose a Silly Number of Sales”). Step four: Pour award-winning wine, […]
Chapter Deux
Starting today, I put all my chips into this world of bottled history and culture. Wagon Wine began in 2014 while I continued my full-time career teaching literature and writing. The site served as a creative outlet, a challenge to deepen my understanding of wine while writing engagingly. After a year of working both in the classroom […]
Visions through the Mist at the Oregon Wine Symposium
Last week’s Oregon Wine Symposium provided plenty of fodder for this curious mind. A few tidbits for you, my beloved readers, to ponder and peruse: 2015, the warmest vintage on record in the Willamette Valley, will become the norm between 2035—2045. The wine industry and many others (NASA, ski resorts, Inuit villages, farmers more broadly) take […]
Evolution at the Corner of Wine and Education
A recent article by Levi Dalton provoked my interest, churning the cream within my mind. I have taught writing and literature for five years and hold an MA in Teaching. While I have cut back my appointment to pursue a career in wine, I continue to thumb the minds of students. If attuned, the young people in any classroom […]
Wine Literature Must Haves
In my previous post, Buying Wine, I mentioned the anxiety many feel when purchasing wine. The plethora of options at most wine retailers leads people to often reach for the comfortable–old trusty–or pick a varietal, price point, and label that aligns with their mood, and then speed out of that daunting environment. The following list […]