On the old Jack Benny radio show in the 1940s, a continuing character played by the actor Sheldon Leonard was a racetrack “shill,” who always spoke in a hushed tone. The shady character would suggest to Benny that he bet on a horse “in the third [race],” usually starting his pitch with “hey, bud” and…

Shortly after I began writing a wine column in 1976, a friend teased me about my avocation. We were journalists working at The Associated Press, and he probably didn’t mean to be disparaging when he said, “All red wines taste the same.” Not a very journalistic approach. Since I had never known him to take…

Decades ago, visiting wine country was limited to the few areas of the country with wineries. Outside California, that meant upstate New York and a tiny handful of hamlets scattered hither and mostly yon. Today, that number has expanded to just about every state, including Texas (i.e., Hill Country), Ohio (i.e., Lake Erie), Idaho (i.e.,…

What do you do when you buy a bottle of wine that, for one reason or another, is not to your liking? If the wine is sound and not spoiled in any way, but you just don’t like the style, you could always cook with it. But that’s impractical and costly. Instead, what if you…

Recently, the world lost two of the most important figures in California’s wine history when Jim Clendenen and Dr. David Bruce passed away. Clendenen was 68. Bruce was 89. These men were iconic figures in California’s world of fine wine, but not in the way many people think of domestic wine history: They were producers…