Great (Free) Wine Resources!

If you are interested in learning more about wine, it can become quite the academic pursuit and while there are plenty of easy to find wine resources out there, there are plenty of great free wine resources that are not as obvious or have very specific uses. These are references that we find very useful at the Shop and, like a great bottle, should be shared!

• Are you an Italian wine lover? Do you want to know what the difference is between Cirò DOC Rosso and Cirò DOC Rosso Classico Reserva? Or maybe what grapes go into Rosso di Valtellina? Then, Italian Wine Central is the place to find your answer! They have information about every wine region, plus facts and figures about international, national, regional, and grape varietals.
• Unfortunately, we have not been able to find an equivalent free English-language website for France or Spain, but they do have solid regional sites:
  • For Spain, you can access them thru their marketing portal, Wines from Spain, which has links to every regions website.
  • For France, you have to hunt for them, but several of the larger regions have great sites full of information:
    • Champagne
    • Rhone Valley
    • Languedoc
    • Alsace
    • Loire Valley
    • Bordeaux
    • Burgundy
• Then, when you have a really esoteric question about grapes, you can turn to the FPS Grape Registry to see if you can answer your question. Run out of UC Davis, it is a large publicly-available foundation collection of wine, table, juice, raisin and rootstock grape varieties that was started in 1958. They also have a huge database of details about each variety (see: Cabernet Sauvignon) and their clones. This is where you can go to find all the other names for Tempranillo!

There are dozens of other great references, like the GuildSomm podcasts or the WSET Global Knowledge Centre that we turn to for more in-depth information, these are some of the ones that we regularly turn to for quick answers!

This Week’s Schedule:

• Special Event, Tuesday 5-7p: Antiquum Farm Tasting
• Beer Thursday, 5-7p: Starr Hill Brewery
• Wine Friday, 5-7p: Spring Surprises with Serghei from Old Town Cellars
• Saturday, 2-6p: Staff Pick Tasting