A friend and winemaker once convinced me that certain kinds of wines taste better with certain kinds of music, and that the wrong pairing makes for dis-chord. I thought of that years ago when I attended a small dinner for lovers of Chablis. I refer to that utterly sublime white wine from the French district…

I suggested in a column some years ago that in general most white wines are best consumed young, after which a reader chastised me for ignoring what he said was my naivete. He said great white Burgundies, great German rieslings and some Australian semillons were best after a decade or two. “I’m sure you have…

One of the world’s greatest grapes, sauvignon blanc, has suffered enough indignities over the years to qualify as a survivor—though the accolades it has received recently make it seem as if it’s always been a star. In fact, the history of this variety is so checkered that most of today’s younger wine buyers would never…