Betsey, widow of legendary NYT reporter Johnny Apple, will put his wine collection up for auction. The Winnipeg Free Press included this blog in their year-end roundup of notables. SPIT: controlled storage. And it still turned out to be the best wine I have ever tasted.&# Most excellent! SIPPED: musical chairs. SPIT: blogging. MORE >>

Grapes are whole-bunched pressed in a vary gentle pneumatic press, with the first and second press juice clearly defined. They are inoculated with yeast from Freixenet’s famed “yeast&# collection with the result being the lower alcohol “base wine.&# You know Freixenet – of course you do! Yeast 101. MORE >>

Valdubon is one of the jewels in the Freixenet collection, as the famed Cava producer is purchasing many properties in prestigious DO areas. ?? At the optimum moment, the grapes (selected by bunch) are harvested to be pressed at the winery within ten hours.?? Ribera del Duero!?? Terroir of the Duero?? Meet Winemaker Javier Aladro?? MORE >>

The juice from each truck’s sampling is collected by a worker, who brings it into the adjacent station for 17 points of analysis. The collected juice is tested for sugar, various acidity, PH, and more and the results are instantly printed out by a computer. Pressing the Grapes. The Penedes. Rootstocks, Soil, and Grapes. MORE >>

Another possibility is that a sunken cork might also slide right down the bottle neck when you start to press it with the corkscrew worm, which is usually a phenomenon that can accompany heat damage or oxidation. I was given an amazing birthday gift in November, an old bottle of wine by Produttori del Barbaresco, the 1959 Riserva. Steak. MORE >>