Welcomes back to House Wine, because as I say at the top of this episode - which ever wine you have in your glass that is your house wine. This week I made the classic mistake of thinking that I knew and understood a region without actually having done much reading or research on it, ha! A testament to the fact that there is always something more to learn and understand about wine. Also a lesson to myself not to just assume I know something. I learned so much this week. Why is Lambrusco Italy's ...
Apr 12, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Welcome back wine nerds! Ever wonder what Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon have in Common? Spoiler Alert, it's Pinot Noir. This week we do a mini deep dive into the Pinot Family Tree and highlight the connection between some of the most famous grapes out there. As I transition back into working full time I really want to continue putting out episodes weekly. That means that there may be a Minisode that pops up every 4-5 weeks so I can continue to do my due diligence when it comes to researching...
Apr 05, 2021•11 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Welcome back again friends, our house wine this week is Franciacorta. Just like that out of no where we are learning about an Italian wine region for the first time. Before we talk Franciacorta, I do a pretty lengthly intro about people working in the wine industry with disability. If you only want to hear about wine, then you can fast forward to around the 10 minute mark. We go into all things history and learn about why this region is called what it is called, spoiler alert, it has something t...
Mar 29, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Welcome back wine friends, this week our House Wine is all wines Beaujolais. From the light bodied and quaffable, but ever scandalous, Beaujolais Nouveau all the way the Cote du Py in Morgon, this episode goes deep. We learn that the Gang of Four is not just another post punk band and that not all press is good press, especially when there are 1,000,000 bottles of wine on the line. I was very saddened this week by the passing of Steven Spurrier, truly a larger than life legend in the wine world ...
Mar 15, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Welcome back wine friends, this week our House Wine isn't so much a region or a specific wine but it is a style of wine. It's a winemaking technique that may be as old as wine itself. It's time to put our lab coats on, look side long at a beaker and pretend we are scientists because the time has come to talk about all things Carbonic Maceration. What are flavonoids? Who is Louis Pasteur and what did he do to the yeasts? It's all here. Of course I couldn't do it alone, this is a complex subject a...
Mar 08, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Welcome back! This week our house wines are from the Southern Rhone. The Southern Rhone is an incredibly varied and diverse region with a lot going on. And we cover a lot of it in this episode. If you haven't checked out the episode last week about Chateauneuf du Pape, please give that a listen before this episode because we reference it quite a bit and it will provide a lot of context for the Cotes du Rhone, Gigondas and Vacqueras, and some of their less famous friend appellations. We also go f...
Mar 01, 2021•39 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Hi friends, welcome back! This week our House Wine is Chateau Neuf du Pape and we will be looking into all the history, grapes and styles that make this wine region amazing. There are some characters here who put this wine region on the map so we go quite deep in to history on this episode. We also deep dive into the 18 Grapes than can be part of this blended wine. I talk about a few producers here: Chateau Beaucastel: http://www.beaucastel.com/en/ Famille Perrin: https://m.familleperrin.com/12P...
Feb 22, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Hi friends and welcome back! Last week I err... spilled Sake all over my keyboard and lost my recordings, thankfully I only lost two! The good news is that I was due for an update and have brand new recording software, and I think it shows :) So, sorry to everyone for the delay in episodes! This week we are going to be digging into the Northern Rhone and getting a closer look at Syrah, Viognier, Rousanne and Marsanne. Along with some of the AOP's that make this these wines iconic. Producers that...
Feb 15, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Hi wine friends! This week we are talking about South Africa. This month the South African Government banned the sale of alcohol in the country due to Covid-19, so it seemed like it would be a good a time as any to dive into the history, the grapes and some of the reasons you should be picking up a bottle of South African wine. We go deep into the history this episode and how and why they started growing grapes around The Cape. It gets a little intense, but as I mention several times in the epis...
Feb 01, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Hello wine friends and welcome back to House Wine! This week we are going to look at Sparkling Wine, the styles of sparkling wine and how it gets made. Yes, we even touch on if you can put still wine in your Soda Stream. We also go into a brief history about the early days of Champagne and everyone's favorite Monk: Dom Perignon. The five main processes of making wine sparkle are broken down and we talk about which countries and which wines are using which. Of course as source material I use: The...
Jan 25, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Welcome Back! We made it to the final part of this four part series on the Loire Valley. This week we are diving into the Central Vineyards, home to some of the most iconic white wine appellations in all of France: Sancerre and Pouilly Fume, along with a whole host of their less famous sibling AOP's. We are in the home of a grape that needs no introduction, but gets one anyways, Sauvignon Blanc. In Podcast specific news, moving forward this will be a weekly show with episodes posted every Monday...
Jan 18, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Welcome back, I am back from Holiday hiatus and I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing Holiday Season. We are back with the third part of the Loire Valley where we dive into the complex and wonderful AOP's of Vouvray and Chinon and also talk about some sparkling wines for the first time. Some of the wines that I mention in this episode are: Charles Jouget: http://en.charlesjoguet.com/philosophy.html Domaine Huet: https://www.domainehuet.com/#presentation Couley-Dutheil: https://www.coulydutheil...
Jan 04, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Hi everyone, I'm back! After a bit of recovery from a pretty insane week I am super excited to talk about Anjou Saumur with all of you. Let's talk about what Natural Wine is. Let's talk about Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc and regions that make some of the best biodynamic wines of the world. Also what is biodynamic wine? Let's figure it out! Books I used for this episode: The Oxford Companion to Wine 4th Edition, by Jancis Robinson 1001 Wines to Try Before You Die, Neil Beckett Loirevalleywine....
Nov 30, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Welcome back! I'm really happy this week to start a what will be a four part series over the next few weeks on the Loire Valley, one of the most diverse wine regions in France. To do it justice, it just had to be split up into sections. Which means that this episode is all about the Pays Nantais, and one of by favorite wines: Muscadet. Before I dive into the content though, I address the New York Times article that has the wine world on edge right now, and for good reason. Last week more than tw...
Nov 10, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Hi guys, welcome back to house wine, and my longest episode yet: Napa! I'm really excited and happy about this one, you get a little more exposition here and some anecdotes about how much I love this region. This was inspired by the recent fires, so I say it in the episode, but now is the time to support California, and you will get the skinny on why when you listen - so this episode is best enjoyed with a bottle of California wine. If you want to request an episode or have a question you can em...
Oct 26, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Welcome to a crash course is Alsace! It's a lot of information in 30 minutes, and I talk way more about history in this episode than I will in following episodes, but I think it's worth it. In this episode I used three books: The Oxford Companion to wine, 4th Edition by Jancis Robinson. The Wine Bible, 2nd Edition by Karen MacNiel. and Wine and War, by Donald and Petie Kladstrup The wines I talk about are: The Wines of Marcel Deiss : https://www.marceldeiss.com/en/ The Wines of Zind Humbrecht: h...
Oct 12, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Welcome to the first episode of House Wine! I told my study group that I was ready to publish the podcast and my friends were so happy and supportive, they asked "What are you leading with? Something exciting? A real hook? Napa? Barolo?" and I answered, "Yes, French Wine Law!" My one friend gave me look and said, "Way to go Rachael... way to hook them in..." We all laughed. French wine law is exciting! It is important. And it makes it so much easier to know wine and buy wines when you know how t...
Sep 29, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 1
