It’s not every evening I get to taste ten white Burgundies with a decade or so of age. So I delighted to have the chance to taste through several bottles at a collector’s house recently to assess the risk and reward of white Burgundy. Ballot-Millot, Meursault Perrieres, 2002 : oxidized. For one, they’re often expensive. MORE >>

a guest exclaims, entering the ground floor reception area of the famous Clos de Vougeot and seeing handsomely uniformed waiters pouring tastes of the region's finest red and white wines. The clever thing is that ALL the wines are tasted blind. "This is absolutely fantastic!" MORE >>

And that’s what Dave Erickson, a site reader in North Carolina who blogs at the Wine Mule , has been doing and he sent in this question about them: We had a tasting of orange wines the other night , and the question came up: How do sommeliers deal with these wines, when they all seem to need anywhere from 4 to 24 hours to become presentable? MORE >>

It’s the time of year when distributors and/or importers have annual (or semi-annual) portfolio tastings. Yesterday was the Polaner Selections tasting and I dropped by for a while in the second half. The Crichet Paje on the table from 2002, a poor vintage but a great wine. Below are a few impressions and photos. Quite fun. MORE >>

We then enjoyed two wines from the 2005 vintage with my fish soup. 2005 is thought to be a great vintage because, as in most of France, conditions were essentially perfect. I'm not sure yet where I stand on 2005, as I've had some wines that are more about ripeness and grape character than they are about terroir. But close. MORE >>