Iconic Wines - Unbeatable Prices
Iconic Wines - Unbeatable Prices
Pink wine isn’t a single category. Ask a collector to compare white Burgundy and white Bordeaux and they will throw up their hands – apples and oranges! Comparing Northern Rhône Syrah and Australian Cabernet Sauvignon would simply be out of…
Michelin’s 2025 announcement that it would begin rating wine estates was met with more skepticism than fanfare within the wine business, and its inaugural list of 94 Burgundy estates is already causing drama. My initial question when the move was…
“Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens.” – Christopher Hitchens Last week brought the news of a fresh schism in the Catholic Church, with the Vatican excommunicating an ultraconservative sect of bishops and warning…
If you’re a longtime reader here at Grand Cru Direct, odds are good that you have your bases covered when it comes to the classics. Pinot, Chard, Cab, Champagne, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese – you likely have a range of vintages and…
“Buy what you like” is all well and good, but it does not a cellarmaster make. Every long-term wine collector has looked up at some point and realized that 10, 25, or even 100 cases they are holding just don’t…
In my 2025 in Review article back in December, I mentioned Côte-Rôtie as a region to watch for value in top-tier red wine. While the market for Rhône wines has remained flat since that time (there has been less than…
Maybe it was the buzz of the Master of Wine exam earlier this week, but I’ve had wine certifications on the brain. Having taught a fair few sections of WSET wine classes myself, I’ve always been happy to find that…
It’s Memorial Day weekend, and what better way to celebrate than highlighting the finest vinous achievements of these United States? The USA produces wine in all fifty States and the District of Columbia, from over 750,000 acres of grapevines. From…
While enjoying a delicious glass of Krug Rosé 28ème Édition at a collector’s house recently, I was asked to rate my favorites among the Têtes de Cuvée of the large Champagne houses. The fact that I couldn’t do so readily…
With the Master of Wine exam looming, I’ve been doing a lot of blind tasting, and not just of the classics. From South African Syrah to Moscatel de Setúbal, a lot can show up on the exam that isn’t part…
Do the pioneers of Northern California still hold up to the icons of France after 50 years? The 50th anniversary of Steven Spurrier’s Californian wine tasting on French soil has spawned countless reenactments, reassessments, and recriminations, but few have attempted…
Consistency is a tricky word when it comes to wine. On one hand, wine is a food product, and most food products are expected to taste precisely the same as long as they are consumed within a prescribed window of…
“I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours,…
It is doubtful whether any of the original Saint Valentines (there were multiple martyrs by that name in early Christendom) would recognize the modern holiday that has emerged bearing their name. Over a thousand years passed between the martyrdom of…
I recently spent a week in Sonoma with 32 other Master of Wine hopefuls, blind tasting until our palates gave out and getting thoroughly into the weeds on the minutiae of every facet of the wine business (seriously – I…